./- 



THE CHURCH 

OF THE 

OPEN COUNTRY 






WARREN H. WILSON 



■ 






** 



t* 



■ 




Class 
Book 



1 



a 



Copyright*)". 



COFYKIGHT DEPOSIT. 



FORWARD MISSION STUDY COURSES 

EDITED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 

MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 



THE CHURCH OF THE 
OPEN COUNTRY 



N, B. — Special helps and denominational mission study literature 
for this course can be obtained by corresponding with the 
Secretary of your mission board or society. 




WARREN IT. WILSON 



' THE CHURCH 

O F TH E 

OPEN COUNTRY 



A Study of the Church for the 
Working Farmer 



BY 



WARREN H. WILSON 

AUTHOR OF ''QUAKER HILL 



o 



NEW YORK 

Missionary Education Movement of the 

United States and Canada 



IQII 






Copyright, 191 1, by 

MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 

New York 



The Library 

washington 







f/ 









CLA303367 






TO MY WIFE 

WITH WHOM EVERY MEMORY OF THE COUNTRY 
IS ASSOCIATED 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH 

BY L. H. BAILEY 

I stand in the fields, 

Where the wide earth yields 

Her bounties of fruit and grain; 
Where the furrows turn 
Till the plowshares burn 

As they come 'round and 'round again ; 
Where the workers pray 
With their tools all day 

In sunshine and shadow and rain. 

And I bid them tell 
Of the crops they sell 

And speak of the work they have done 
I speed every man 
In his hope and plan 

And follow his day with the sun; 
And grasses and trees, 
The birds and the bees 

I know and I feel ev'ry one. 

And out of it all 
As the seasons fall 

I build my great temple alway; 
I point to the skies, 
But my footstone lies 

In commonplace work of the day; 
For I preach the worth 
Of the native earth — 

To love and to work is to pray. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface xiii 

I Rural Decay and Repair I 

II Church and Community 21 

III Schools for Country Life 47 

IV Rural Morality and Recreation 77 

V Cooperation and Federation 99 

VI Poverty and Prosperity 125 

VII The Principle of Service 153 

VIII Leadership of the Community 175 

Questions and References 203 

APPENDIXES 

A How Denmark Did It 217 

B Bibliography 220 

Index 227 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Warren H. Wilson '. Frontispiece ' 

Pioneer Cabin Page 8 

Pioneer Family " 8 / 

Exterior and Interior of Country School " 16 «, 

Renter's Barn and Cabin " 38 

Model Rural School, Knox County, Missouri " 52 

Centralized School, Indiana " 54 

Centralized School, Ohio " 54 

John Swaney School, Putnam County, Illinois " 56 

Making a Community Park " 92 

John Frederic Oberlin " 104 < 

Grange Hall .' " no 

Thoroughbred Stock on a Modern Farm " 150 

Presbyterian Church, Cazenovia, New York " 156 

Church Erected One Year Ago at a Cost of $4,000 ... " 166 i 

Saturday Afternoon in Town " 178 

Wild Animal Show " 180 / 

N. F. S. Grundtvig " 218 *' 



PREFACE 

There are not a few who ask the question, 
" What is the use of the Church in the open coun- 
try?" Some of them have through a defective 
training learned to value their own souls dear and 
the Church very cheaply. Having secured a sort of 
fire insurance against the next world, they care 
nothing for an efficient Church in this world. But 
the religious history of the country community 
demonstrates that an efficient Church is necessary to 
the salvation of souls. Others there are who hold, 
as a matter of theory, that all rural institutions 
should be assembled at the population centers, pre- 
sumably at the railway stations, and that ultimately 
the farmers will follow their stores, schools, and 
churches, and will live in congested villages; going 
out mornings to their fields, and returning in the 
evening to sleep. But the course of American his- 
tory indicates no such future peopling of the land. 
It becomes the Church to serve the farmer where 
he lives. 

An increasing number of American farmers are 
under economic pressure. They cannot secure land, 
and they have little ownership in productive tools. 
They, too, ask the question as to the utility of the 
Church in the country. They feel that they cannot 
afford anything but necessities. It is the purpose 



XIV 



Preface 



of these chapters to describe the Church which is a 
necessity to the poor. In the open country four 
farmers out of ten are renters. The future of the 
Church is with them. Yet they are to-day included 
in the membership of the churches in the smallest 
proportions of all men in the country. To give 
them the gospel is the acute problem of the Church 
in the open country. 

I am indebted, for help in the preparing of this 
book, above all to Miss Anna B. Taft, without 
whose help it would have been impossible; and to 
my loyal associates in the day's work, every one of 
whom has given an essential part to a task com- 
pleted in the midst of travel and teaching. 

Warren H. Wilson. 
f New York, October 25, 191 1. 



RURAL DECAY AND REPAIR 



The well-read town dweller has more to learn about the social 
problems of the farm than the well-read farmer has to learn about 
the problems of the town. Each, however, ought to know the other's 
problems, for the problems of each are the problems of the other. 
They are all problems of the nation. As long as all men, however, 
derive their living from the soil, so long will the problems of the 
farmer be the fundamental problems of the nation. Until recently 
on account of the great development in industrial conditions, the 
problems of the town and the city have seemed most insistent; but 
now the more fundamental problems — the problems of the agricul- 
turist — are making themselves heard. — The Outlook 

We conclude, then, that the farm problem consists in maintaining 
upon our farms a class of people who have succeeded in procuring 
for themselves the highest possible class status, not only in the 
industrial, but in the political and the social order — a relative status, 
moreover, that is measured by the demands of American ideals. The 
farm problem thus connects itself with the whole question of demo- 
cratic civilization. This is not mere platitude. For we cannot prop- 
erly judge the significance and the relation of the different industrial 
activities of our farmers, and especially the value of the various social 
agencies for rural betterment, except by the standard of class status. 
It is here that we seem to find the only satisfactory philosophy of 
rural progress. — K. L. Butteriield 

The patriotic American, who thinks of the life of the nation rather 
than of the individual, will, if he looks beneath the surface, discern 
in this God-prospered country symptoms of rural decadence fi aught 
with danger to national efficiency. — Horace Plunkett 

In the United States it should be remembered that nowadays peace 
strength is quite as important as war strength, and it may be ques- 
tioned whether there can be any sustained industrial efficiency where 
the great body of workers who conduct the chief — the only absolutely 
necessary — industry are wasting the resources at their command by 
bad husbandry. — Horace Plunkett 



I 



RURAL DECAY AND REPAIR 

Widespread Untoward Conditions. It is the 
common opinion of rural leaders that country life 
in America has fallen out of repair. The house- 
hold, the church, the school, and the store in the 
country show the effect of change. They are not 
what they were twenty-five years ago. These 
changes are seen all over the United States, with 
slight local variation. They are uniform from 
Maine to Mississippi. Young people are leaving 
the country for the city, teachers of country schools 
move almost every year, and many ministers have 
despaired of the country Church. 

National Commission. The Country Life Com- 
mission, in their report to President Theodore 
Roosevelt, in 1908, made this a national issue. 
Writers before that date had pictured it in terms of 
local degeneracy. The decay of families and the 
sinking of communities into degeneracy had shocked 
and alarmed. This earlier literature concerned 
New England alone, and found the causes to be so- 
cial. The Commission, of which Liberty H. Bailey 
was Chairman, pressed the inquiry deeper into the 
economic welfare of the people. They found the 
causes in the living conditions of the people, and 

3 



4 The Church of the Open Country 

their summons has aroused all friends of the open 
country to work together for " better farming, bet- 
ter business, better living." 

Writers and Proposed Remedies. This contrast 
between the early country life movement of New 
England and the present national country life move- 
ment is well expressed in ihe two books which may 
be called the best books on the subject. They are 
Anderson's The Country Town, published in 1906, 
two years before the Commission report was pub- 
lished, and Plunkett's The Rural Life Problem in 
the United States, published in 19 10, two years 
after that momentous report was published. Each 
book is national in its message, though Anderson 
frankly wrote from a New England study window, 
and Sir Horace Plunkett from an Irish gentleman's 
country house : and each writer has grasped the fun- 
damental processes of American rural life. But the 
last chapter of The Country Town pleads for " The 
Church as a Social Center " ; while the message of 
The Rural Life Problem is that " There must be 
better farming, better business, and better living. 
These three are equally necessary, but better busi- 
ness must come first." Dr. Anderson, out of the 
New England experience, alarmed by rural decay, 
summons us to social service, but Sir Horace 
Plunkett, from the experience of the Old World, 
and the wider investigation of American conditions, 
recognizes that the causes of rural decay are eco- 
nomic, and demands an initial economic remedy. 

Four Types and Periods. The decay of rural 



Rural Decay and Repair 5 

life in America is seen in four types : first individual- 
ism, second degenerate groups, third speculation, 
and fourth exploited lands. Each one of these is 
an enemy of the Church, and retards the growth of 
religion in the country. Each one of them arises, 
not out of the Church itself, but out of the social 
economy of the country. They are all results of 
causes which affect the farmer in the process of 
getting a living. Four periods of American country 
life are seen in these four kinds of decay: the 
pioneer, or solitary farmer; the land- farmer, or 
household farmer; the exploiter, or speculative 
farmer; and the husbandman, or organized farmer, 
who is righting the present exploitation of land. 
These four great American countrymen have fol- 
lowed one another across the stage of the open 
country. They have built their churches and their 
communities like unto themselves. The spirit of 
the future is one of organizing the farmers and 
federating the churches. These types of men and 
communities have been successive. They appear in 
the order named. They are cumulative, and the 
later communities contain all the earlier types. The 
troubles with the country Church are those of 
transition from household farming to organized 
farming. 

Individualist Phase. Individualism in American 
country life has been marked. Farmer folk will not 
combine, and they recognize few ties outside of a 
man's duty to himself. In the older settlements 
the farmer is very independent. He is not used to 



6 The Church of the Open Country 

obeying any one, and he refuses to respond to com- 
mands from whatever quarter they may come. He 
follows leaders, and not principles. He looks upon 
the world as made up of persons, and nothing else. 
This individualism has been the blessing of the few 
and the bane of the many in New England, for it 
has caused the creation of a few bright and brainy 
people, while it has neglected great numbers of 
ordinary people. The degeneracy of the rural 
stock of New England in many places has been due 
to the selection of the favored individuals for 
emigration to the West and to the cities; and the 
abandonment of all the weaker members in the com- 
munities. 1 

Some of Its Effects. Individualism has been a 
factor in the dissolution of the rural household. 
The boy and girl have left home to seek a personal 
fortune. They have consulted personal pleasure 
rather than family advantage and have gone to the 
town or city to live, because there a better wage 
could be secured and more social pleasures enjoyed. 



1 The sensational picture by the Rev. Rollin Lynde Harte, 
which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LXXXIII, under 
the title " A New England Hill Town," and the article by 
President William DeWitt Hyde of Bowdoin College on the 
" Impending Paganism in New England," called public atten- 
tion to the degenerate sections of New England. Dr. Josiah 
Strong pointed out in succeeding years the depletion of rural 
communities in States as far west as Illinois. Other writers 
depicted these processes, especially as they had roots in New 
England. An excellent summary of them is in the chapters 
on " The Extent of Rural Depletion " and " Local Degen- 
eracy," in Dr. Wilbert L. Anderson's book, The Country 
Town. 



Rural Decay and Repair 7 

The churches of the community have been multi- 
plied by emphasis upon individual preference. 
Often one elderly church officer will insist upon the 
planting or the maintaining of a country church not 
needed in an overchurched community. Generally 
speaking, the problem of too many churches is due 
to the doctrine of personal salvation carried out 
to the extreme of personal selfishness. Yet the 
reason for the abuse is not in the doctrine, but in 
the circumstances under which they who believe 
that doctrine must needs work in getting a living. 
A Deep-seated Evil. American life is still af- 
fected by pioneer days. The pioneer was lonely in 
his way of life, and he was lonely in his thoughts. 
He had to work and fight for himself. So he prayed 
for himself. Self-protection was his battle all day 
long, and soul salvation was his thought at night. 
He thought and wrought and fought all the week 
that he might survive, and on Sunday he craved 
only to hear how he might survive death. Other 
men have the same thought, but the pioneer had 
it to the exclusion of nearly all social feelings. The 
individualist has this exclusive care of his own soul, 
his own children, his own property, and his own 
pleasure. So deep-seated is this evil in American 
rural life that it is a foe to the progress of people 
in the open country. Cooperation and combination 
are nowadays the principles on which business suc- 
cess, educational advance, or religious efficiency are 
based. None of these is possible among farmers 
who are individualized. That which in pioneer days 



8 The Church of the Open Country 

was a means of survival has become, in our time, 
a sign of retrograde living, and a cause of rural 
decay. 

A Separating Force. Here is the first clue to the 
mystery of overchurched communities. The inde- 
pendence of pioneer days, once a noble trait, has 
become a base form of decay. Generated in the soli- 
tary life of the woods, it has become a selfish 
philosophy in days long after the forests are gone. 
It makes country people suspicious of one another, 
and causes them to live in a sort of aggressive loneli- 
ness, the very opposite of a Christian state, and the 
active enemy of social service. 

Household Group Phase. The second form of 
rural decay is group degeneracy. The second period 
of American rural life saw the perfecting of the 
household group. From 1800 to 1890 the life on 
the farm was represented in the household perfec- 
tion of Whittier's " Snowbound." In those days 
the farmer was no longer living a lonely life. He 
had neighbors, but his household was a complete 
unit in itself. He had in his wife, children, and 
the grandparents, the maiden aunt of the family, 
and the hired man, a perfect little society. The 
whole earth might in those days have been de- 
populated: and if there had been left one farmer's 
household in Ohio or New York, they could have 
repeopled the earth, and could have restored the 
arts, the religion, and the learning of mankind. 
The household farmer farmed the first values of 
the land which lay upon the surface. He was not 




PIONEER CABIN 
PIONEER FAMILY 



Rural Decay and Repair 9 

troubled with the depletion of the soil, the rotation 
of the crops, or the problem of nitrogen. He is 
the farmer of whom we think when we look back 
to the country life of the older days. 

Weakened by Migration. This perfect group 
has suffered severely in the past twenty years. The 
church and the school, which are dependent upon it, 
have suffered with it. The picture at the World's 
Fair in Chicago entitled " Breaking Home Ties " 
depicted the crumbling of the family unit in the 
departure of the son from the farmhouse, never to 
return. The city has claimed a great share ; and the 
West has enticed many away with its opportunities. 
They have gone, not as in earlier days, in families, 
compacted by common hardships, but person by per- 
son; and the family group in the country has been 
weakened by their migration. 

Discouraged Remnants. Throughout much of 
New England the weakening of family life is evi- 
dent. The depleted households cling to small and 
unproductive farms, by a fraction of their former 
strength. I remember driving, in my early min- 
istry, from a prosperous farming section into a 
weakened community, whose lands had a lowered 
value because they lay too far from the railroad. 
My path to a chapel service on Sunday afternoon 
lay past seven successive farmhouses in each of 
which lived one member of a family, clinging in 
solitary misery to a small acreage which had a 
few years earlier supported a household. In that 
same neighborhood was one group of descendants 



io The Church of the Open Country 

of two brothers, which had in two generations pro- 
duced sixteen suicides. " They could not stand 
trouble," the neighbors said. The lowered value of 
their land, with consequent burdens, humiliation, 
and strain, had crushed them. The very ability and 
distinction of the family in the earlier period had the 
effect, by contrast, to sink them lower down. 

Persisting Primitive Types. There are families 
in the older States which have preserved the sim- 
plicity and independence of the pioneer days. They 
do not buy and sell, but the men make nearly every- 
thing needed for the household group. They live 
in the simplicity of earlier days and by simplifying 
their wants and multiplying their crafts they live 
very near to the soil and very far from the world 
market. You may call them degenerate. You may 
call them primitive. The effect is the same. They 
are not of the present. So far as the religious life of 
the community is concerned they are aliens. A 
primitive type which survives to a later day is es- 
sentially degenerate. 

A Demoralizing Menace. A great deal of the 
political trouble in the country towns of the east- 
ern States is due to the buying and selling of votes. 
Much of the difficulty in enforcing the laws against 
the saloon is due to this alien and degenerate stock. 
Dr. Wilbert L. Anderson has shown that the railroad 
and the city have generally sifted out these weaker 
members of the community. They have been car- 
ried into the city and sunk in the whirlpool of the 
slum. It remains, however, for every New Eng- 



Rural Decay and Repair Ii 

land church to plan for the ministry which it can 
render to degenerate households, for the moral 
tone of the whole community is lowered by their 
presence. They are vessels filled with a bitter and 
poisonous liquor. They put the cup of impurity to 
the lips of the children of the cleanest families. 
The punishment of one member or the removal of 
another member of such groups as this does not end 
their virulent power for evil. A group, especially a 
household, has power to perpetuate itself, and these 
families are the waste of the noblest period in 
American agricultural history. 

Speculative Phase. The third form of rural 
decay is the process of farm speculation. Specula- 
tion is a valuing of things in cash. It is an effort 
to " make money " without labor. In the house- 
hold period of farming, about the '80s and '90s of 
the nineteenth century, country people began to 
value their property no longer as homes but as 
assets. A price was put upon the acre. The farm 
home was offered finally for sale. Remaining still 
a farmer, the man has moved to the westward, or 
to the eastward, from the central States, as the 
rising values of land have tempted him. The 
vicious and artificial character of his social life is 
evidenced by the fact that he has been profiting 
through the rising price of land in a time when 
the actual value of land is falling. An Illinois 
farmer told the writer, " I used to raise ninety 
bushels of corn per acre on my farm. I can now 
with better machinery only raise forty-five bushels 



12 The Church of the Open Country 

per acre. At the same time my land has increased 
in value from thirty-five dollars per acre, when it 
was producing ninety bushels, to one hundred and 
fifty dollars per acre when it is producing forty- 
five bushels. The only thing that saved me was 
the rising price of farm products." This is a 
vicious and artificial system. While it is not all 
evil, it has left a deposit of speculative influence 
in the country. Churches and schools in the dis- 
trict in which this system of the speculative farmer 
prevails are weakened, the most of them are stand- 
ing still, and the number of those which fail is as 
great as the number of those which are succeeding. 
Effect of Abundant Cash. Rural decay through 
speculation shows itself in those regions in which 
the farmer sees before him a great profit through 
the sale of his properties and is transformed by this 
prospect into an idler. In southwestern Pennsyl- 
vania the farm lands are underlaid by beds of bitu- 
minous coal. The farmers of that section are of the 
household farming era. They have sold the coal 
under their land very generally and have received 
high prices for it. Sometimes the companies which 
now own the coal wait for years before mining it. 
Meantime, the farmers gradually have loosened 
and relaxed their methods of tilling the soil. After 
years of meager living they have come into pos- 
session of plenty of money. The older men main- 
tain the industry of a lifetime, but imperceptibly 
the whole household, especially the younger mem- 
bers, show the corrupting influence of mere cash as 



Rural Decay and Repair 13 

opposed to an economic system. The ministers of 
that region and leading church people have come to 
recognize the impending destruction of their 
churches. They are praying and they are asking 
for light as to the methods to be used in the era 
just upon them. 

Test of the Incoming Foreigners. As soon as the 
coal company begins to operate its properties it 
brings into the region great numbers of miners. 
These men are foreigners. The bosses are from 
the British Isles or from the older stock of immi- 
grants. The miners themselves are from south- 
eastern Europe, of those types of Europeans most 
alien to American customs and institutions. No 
severer strain can be put upon Christian institu- 
tions or upon public schools than such an invasion. 
Weakened already by the decay of the speculative 
process, these churches are ill prepared to minister 
to the needy foreigner. They are too feeble to 
teach the masterful industrial leaders their duty to 
the poor and to the kingdom of God. 

Question of Remedies. The remedy for this 
decay is the exaltation of giving, when the farmers 
first become rich, and the organizing of benevolence 
through community enterprises. My purpose here 
is to describe the process. The remedy is seldom 
at hand. The trouble is that these changes through 
speculation are too swift or their slow processes 
are too subtle for religious men to understand 
them, and to deal with them. The whole countryside 
is often eaten with the social corrosion of the ex- 



14 The Church of the Open Country 

ploitation of land for coal, for iron, or other specu- 
lative commodities. 

Exploitation Phase. The fourth form of decay 
is in the exploited lands and people. Farm life is 
like all other social life, subject to exploitation. Its 
values are seized by the masterful and by the selfish 
to increase their gains. The strong are made more 
powerful and the weak are ground into the earth. 
The country communities in all the eastern States 
show the effects of exploitation. They are almost 
hopelessly weakened through the depletion of the 
soil. In New England there are communities in 
which the land has been " ryed off." 1 Other towns 
have been exhausted by raising tobacco year after 
year without fertilization. 

Example of Soil Exhaustion. Twenty years ago 
in Groton, Massachusetts, an old farmer, whose 
years and wisdom had earned him the title of 
" Uncle Rufus," took me to the top of a hill and 
pointing to the sandy stretches below us said, 
" Young man, you wouldn't believe that when I was 
your age I worked in fields of tobacco and of rye 
down there ! We raised big crops there till there was 
no more in the soil. We never fertilized. Now that 
land only raises the scrub oak and stunted pine you 
see down there. It will never again be what it was." 

Example of Missouri Town. In some parts of 
Missouri the community has been blighted by the 
transformation of farm land into mining land, and 

1 Land that has been robbed of its fertility by continuous 
crops of rye. 



Rural Decay and Repair 15 

after the process is done there remains an impover- 
ished stock, the leavings of a strong population, 
who themselves ousted the farmer for the sake of 
mineral wealth. Going on to other mining com- 
munities, they have left the weaker members of their 
own households to fester socially and to decay 
morally in a depleted and impoverished place. The 
following quotation from the letter of an investiga- 
tor in Missouri is a picture of such a mining town. 
It shows the close relation between the impoverished 
soil and the exploited people. It is a luminous illus- 
tration of the close relation between economic, 
moral, and religious life. " It is a half -deserted 
mining town. The reason it isn't all deserted is 
because half the population were too lazy to move. 
They lie around in dilapidated, unpainted, filthy 
hovels from daylight to dark. There is a school- 
house there : I mean there is a building there in 
which children go to school. It is 25 by 50 feet in 
size. It is frame; several square yards of weather- 
boarding have been torn from it; its door has been 
kicked in. Of its ten windows six have been com- 
pletely knocked out. Many panes of the remaining 
four are broken. The blackboard is half demol- 
ished. Some of the seats are torn loose. Filth is on 
the floor. There is a road between Danforth and 
Connellsville on which I had to walk my horse every 
step. On the way I met another man on a horse. 
He looked at me suspiciously and remarked that no 
one ever traveled that road unless he was lost. 
There are 4,766 people in this township. Less than 



1 6 The Church of the Open Country 

300 go to church; and the churches! Heaven help 
them ! Offering denominationalism and theology to 
men who have practically no decent forms of social 
gathering or recreation ! The motion picture shows, 
held in buildings fit only for kindling purposes, have 
twice as many people in a night as the churches have 
all week. These and the pool-rooms and Sunday 
baseball games are the only places where men can 
meet out of working hours." 

Four Phases Summarized. One might summarize 
this account of rural decay by saying that there 
have been four successive types of countrymen, of 
country community, and of country church in 
America. These four are the solitary farmer, the 
household farmer, the speculative farmer, and the 
organized farmer. 

Work with Present Forces. The repair of coun- 
try life can only be made in modern terms. One 
cannot rebuild the past. It is impossible to restore 
the pioneer, much as his virtues are to be admired, 
because he was made by the wild mountain and the 
lonely prairie, which are no more. The household 
organization of country life was created by a state of 
affairs in which the household made all that it 
consumed. It was complete in itself. This can 
never come again, because the market to-day is the 
world, and the farming class will not go back to 
manufacturing all their necessities on their own 
premises. We cannot restore the household type 
of farming, though its moral and spiritual values 
were very great. 




EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR OF A COUNTRY SCHOOL 
NO FOUNDATION, SIDING BROKEN, DOOR CRACKED 



Rural Decay and Repair 17 

Scientific Farming the Basis. Scientific farming 
is the clue to the repair of country life. Not merely 
for profit, but for the building up of an intelligent 
organized country population, scientific agriculture 
will be of use in the country. It must be a gospel 
of the mind and soul, and on this new basis 
churches, schools, and whole communities will be 
erected. 

Introduces New Method of Life. The beginning 
of this process is already made. The government 
of life in the country by scientific standards is ac- 
complishing much. Farmers who are obliged to be 
scientific in order to raise any crop out of depleted 
soil are fighting the battle with adversity, using 
scientific agriculture as a military necessity. But 
when the necessity is past, they will have learned 
a new method of life. Sanitary reform is coming 
also in the country, based upon exact scientific re- 
search. Throughout the Southern mountains the 
hope is entertained by teachers and social workers 
that the campaign against the hook-worm will be 
successful. Already its results there are astonish- 
ing, and the victory against this enemy of social 
progress among Southern people is in sight, though 
far off. 

Country Struggle Changing the South. The fight 
in the South against the boll weevil is proving a 
wonderful social discipline. It is organizing the 
people of the whole South to a sense of the value of 
science in the reorganization of country life. This 
victory is coming in two forms. It is compelling 



1 8 The Church of the Open Country 

the farmer to till the crop with energy and precision. 
He can win a good crop by forced culture and reap 
it before the boll weevil has matured sufficiently 
to destroy it. But a greater discipline is felt 
throughout the South. The long-needed diversify- 
ing of Southern crops will come by the destruction 
of the cotton crop in some sections. 

Approaching Farmer Organization. Correspond- 
ing to science as a discipline for agriculture, the 
organization of country people is necessary. Pre- 
cisely as the labor unions have organized wage- 
earners, the farmers must organize. Not in the 
same terms nor with the same demands, but with 
equal thoroughness, and with the same subjection of 
the individual to the union of his fellows. These 
organizations which are now existing will have 
a variety of purposes. They are not merely for 
direct financial gain. So long as they go to the 
root of the farmer's prosperity, however, they will 
effect the same ethical and religious transformation. 
They will teach the farmer to cooperate and to obey. 
They prepare a way for the federation of the 
churches, and the unifying of every phase of coun- 
try work. 

A New Country Ideal. A new ideal of country 
life must arise out of the present struggle, and 
everywhere men are studying this ideal in the com- 
munity. Its sources are in the experience of the 
older eastern States. New England was built un- 
der a community organization. The New England 
town is a self-governing community and the tradi- 



Rural Decay and Repair 19 

tion of the Town Meeting has gone westward with 
a migrating population. Pennsylvania has in the 
Quakers and the Mennonites the community tradi- 
tion in a more spiritual form. Disdaining the civil 
organization and caring nothing for politics, they 
formed themselves into communities by the genius 
of their religious system. They controlled the in- 
dividual by methods of their own and cooperated in 
essential things for the common welfare. 

Community in Action. The community is an old 
ideal, born out of the experiences of mankind in 
America and Europe, which expresses to-day the 
working principle of rural repair. The way to teach 
a population this ideal is not merely to preach it 
and to describe it, important as this is, but to prac- 
tise it. People learn by what they do more than 
all that they hear. The first essential in teaching 
a community spirit is to organize a community act. 
Old Home Week in an eastern State will bring 
together a community meeting, and the effects of it 
will be illuminating to the minds of all. The cele- 
bration of the holidays of the year has power to 
awaken the community spirit, if this celebration is in 
common for all. It is not enough to have a Thanks- 
giving service in the church. Indeed, such a meet- 
ing may be a denial of community principles. But 
the celebration of Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, 
Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving 
should be so public and should be in such terms that 
the whole population will respond. The custom of 
so doing, even though it recurs but twice a year, will 



20 The Church of the Open Country' 

have amazing power in organizing a community 
sense. 

Preacher as Community Leader. The community 
leader is an organizer. Therefore the preacher or 
teacher should get his people to do the things which 
he wants them to believe. For infallibly action 
precedes thought, but when he has started the prac- 
tise of the community he must not fail to state the 
ideal to the community. He must keep before their 
minds a constructive, consistent community organ- 
ization. This will have persuasive influence over 
those who are practising the thing itself. Little by 
little the ideal in its mental forms will strike into 
their hearts, mellowed and prepared by the enter- 
prises and the enjoyments of community practise. 
The business of the preacher is to state the ideals 
arising in the experience of the people. 

Emphasis on Country Values. The repair of 
country life will come in those forms which give 
value to the things in the open country. The com- 
munity must move and breathe in joy and enthusi- 
asm of the country. The celebrations must be of 
country matters, not those of the city. It must 
arise as far as possible on the ground, and must be 
essential to the life of people living in the open 
country. In this way the country community will 
mark out its own path of growth and progress. 
It will have life of its own of which it will soon 
boast, and the streams of waste will be stopped. 
The exodus from the country will be turned back 
and the community will be built. 



CHURCH AND COMMUNITY 



Nevertheless, the Church has a peculiarly close relationship to the 
-other rural institutions, and in fact to all the movements of rural 
life. The Church has not adequately appreciated this fact, which has 
its origin in a characteristic feature of country life; namely, that 
all its interests are very intimately bound together. The work of 
the farm and of the household, the life of the family, the amusements 
of the neighborhood, the interests of all in school, Grange, and Church 
are closely intertwined. — K. L. Butterfield 

This ideal of a Church which makes itself a factor in building 
up a community, even in material things, is not an impossible ideal. 
It has been realized in the past and it can be realized again. An 
illustrious example is that of John Frederic Oberlin, the pastor of 
the Steinthal. Numberless other examples can be found in the reli- 
gious orders of the medieval Church, — examples of communities which 
were made rich and prosperous by the teachings and the example of 
self-sacrificing leaders. This ideal will, however, never be realized 
by a Church which affects to despise this world and the things of 
this world, which regards the world itself as lost, and conceives of 
its own mission as consisting in saving as many individual souls as 
possible from the wreck. 

If the Church will assume that the world is not going to perdition, 
that it is going to last for a long time, and that it will eventually be 
a Christian or a non-Christian world, according as Christians or non- 
Christians prove themselves more fit to possess it — according as they 
are better farmers, better business men, better mechanics, better 
politicians — then the Church will turn its attention more and more 
to the making of better and more progressive farmers, business men, 
mechanics, and politicians. — Thomas Nixon Carver 



22 



II 

CHURCH AND COMMUNITY 

Close Relationship. The country church is mar- 
ried to the country community. That which affects 
the one affects also the other. If the community 
is impoverished, the church wears a pinched ap- 
pearance. If the community is prosperous, the 
church under normal conditions shows growth and 
self-respect. 

Church Shows Community Condition. The coun- 
try church is the weather vane of community pros- 
perity. It is a voluntary institution, divinely given 
as an index of how well the farmer is getting on. 
The tilling of the soil is an occupation which can- 
not be carried on except by sober men, and it has 
never been maintained in a population through suc- 
ceeding generations except among religious people. 
The relation between work and worship is more 
evident in the country than in the city, for rural 
life is simple and its social texture is clear to 
the observer. The working of cause upon effect is 
plain in the country. There are not so many dis- 
turbing or extraneous forces and there are but few 
interferences between cause and effect. The bear- 
ing of economic life upon religious institutions is 

23 



24 The Church of the Open Country 

much more evident than in the city, because country 
life is highly organized, but simple. 

Community Defined. What is a community? A 
man or woman in the country lives his whole life 
within the radius of a team haul from his home. 
However much he visits without this circle, his 
knowledge of the community is one hundred times 
more intense and personal than his knowledge of 
any other community. In this small republic to 
which he is limited by the common means of trans- 
portation, he visits, he buys and sells, he worships, 
he marries, and within this radius he buries his 
dead. 

Common View. This enables one to define the 
community in popular terms, as a child might define 
it, as \ the place where we live." This includes local- 
ity, personal and social relations, and vital experi- 
ence. The community is the larger whole in which 
the members of a we-group find satisfaction of their 
vital needs. This means that the community is the 
virgin soil of the Kingdom. The Church when it 
pervades the whole life of the community constitutes 
with it a little republic of God, because the whole 
life of the people in that community is lived within 
this range. 

Another Definition. Another definition of a com- 
munity is given by Professor Charles A. El wood. 1 
" A society is, therefore, a group of people living 
together by means of interstimulation and response. 

1 Charles A. Elwood, of the University of Missouri, in 
American Journal of Sociology, March, 191 1, p. 835. 



Church and Community 25 

What its total life is depends very largely upon the 
attitude of its members toward one another. How 
they cooperate depends, therefore, upon common 
will, belief, and opinion, and the agencies by which 
common will, belief, and opinion effect social con- 
trol. These agencies are chiefly religion, govern- 
ment and law, and education." 

Church as Community Center. The Church, be- 
cause of its relation to the community, should be a 
community center. It can not exist and prosper 
unless it is the focus of the life of the community. 
Now communities are of infinitely varied size and 
form. They are not perfect circles or squares or 
ellipses. They cannot be brought down to any geo- 
metrical terms. One uses the word " center " as a 
suggestive term, because there is no better. If 
the church, being vitally connected with the com- 
munity, does not make itself central to the life of the 
community, it will not continue to exist. There 
may be several such centers in a community, but 
their relation to the whole people must in some way 
be vital, or they will pine and die. 

Individualist Churches. The churches of indi- 
vidualist communities have served their people by 
ministering to persons alone. Their method is the 
preaching of sermons. They have no other. The 
typical man in pioneer and settler days was an in- 
dividualist. He was made such by his work and by 
the lonely struggle of his life. He could be no 
other than what God, by means of the forest, the 
vast open prairie, and the lonely work at the f urrow y 



26 The Church of the Open Country 

made him. His wife spent her solitary hours over 
the varied occupations of the primitive household, 
and she too was a strong, resourceful individual. 
She had but few social traits as compared with the 
modern woman. The church that ministered to such 
people could preach a gospel of individual salva- 
tion alone. It would have been false to its duty 
if it had preached any other. It needed no methods 
such as our later churches use. It had the one 
method: the periodic revival of religion for indi- 
vidual souls. 

Call for the Emotional. For the individualist is 
a man of warm heart, of passionate interest, of 
devoted friendships, and resolute loyalty. To him 
life means nothing but persons. Therefore the 
church of settler folk and the church which has 
pioneer individuals in any numbers in its member- 
ship must use emotional methods. Of course if you 
do not care to win and to hold this kind of people, 
you can omit the measures by which they are to be 
won; but these measures are always emotional, be- 
cause the emotional, individual type of Christian 
is produced by his occupation and by his inheritance. 
He can be only what he is. He must be dealt 
with in his own terms. Country people are very 
many of them pioneers. The number of pioneers 
is greater among the older people than among the 
younger; but for some time to come the country 
Church will have to deal with the proud, solitary, 
and passionate personalities of men who can be won 
and can be served by their feelings alone. 



Church and Community 27 

"All Day Sings." In some parts of Alabama, 
conspicuously in the sandy stretches of the lower 
Appalachian Mountains, the people have a custom 
known as " all day sings." Certain singing masters 
make a business of going through the country and 
collecting the folk on Sundays for singing. These 
men have a rough and effective power in song. 
They use generally no instrument and therefore the 
rhythm and the swing of the music are its most 
notable elements. For hours the people sit under the 
leadership of the singing master and sing simple, 
popular, religious songs. Little by little the master 
selects those whom he calls his school. They are 
the best singers and he keeps them in permanent 
connection with himself, coming back again to that 
community for later performances. 

Suggestion to Churches. The churches through 
all this country have learned that people will not 
go to church within a radius of several miles of an 
" all day sing." Sunday-schools have to be closed 
and church services are but little attended. Yet 
families will drive ten miles to the " all day sing " 
and spend the whole Sunday, eating their meals in 
the intervals between sessions and driving home at 
night, every way content. These gatherings are 
the expression of the overflowing emotionalism of 
the people of that country. It would seem that the 
churches there could use the method which has 
grown out of the life of the people and make effec- 
tive for their own use what is a matter of private 
profit to the singing masters. 



28 The Church of the Open Country 

Extreme Church Individualism. The church in 
settler days, when every one is highly individual- 
ized, is scarcely to be called an institution. Its 
building is a mere roof over a pulpit. Its work con- 
sists of preaching and no more. It has no societies 
or organizations. The settler and the pioneer would 
believe it wicked to organize the societies which an 
ordinary village church of our day thinks necessary. 
Among the Southern mountains, where the pioneer 
type, strongly individualized, remains, where every 
man is an independent person and every woman is a 
strong character, the churches have but one method 
of religion; namely, the periodic revival. They 
think the methods of the people in the valley to be 
wicked, unreligious, and expressive of unregenerate 
minds. To them Ladies' Aid societies are un- 
spiritual, Sunday-schools are sinful, and boys' 
clubs are extremely worldly. 

Ministry to Pioneers. In every church of mod- 
ern times there remain some pioneers. The settler 
has come down through later generations. The in- 
dividualist is a factor and he must be dealt with in 
his own terms. It is not fair for him to tyrannize 
over others any more than it is right for others to 
exact of him what he cannot furnish. Teach him 
the gospel of personal salvation, for religion means 
personal things to him, and these alone. Arouse 
him with emotion. Attach him to persons. Teach 
him to command and to obey those whom he loves, 
but do not expect in his own life to change him 
into another type, for that is impossible. Ministers 



Church and Community 29 

who are serving in communities of settlers, of 
pioneers and mountaineers, have a great duty of 
evangelism. If they cannot preach a gospel that 
moves the heart, they had better go elsewhere. If 
they cannot live a life that grips the heart and holds 
the affections, they can accomplish nothing among a 
people dominated by emotion. 

Man by Man Work. The community life of the 
individualist type is a mere aggregate. However 
closely the people in it are related to one another, 
they are a mere heap of separate units. They are 
not an organism growing together and knit into one 
by organized vital relations. In the West in new 
settlements every man is equal to every other, and 
pure democracy prevails. In the Southern moun- 
tains each man stands on his own acres and faces 
the world without fear. He extends the hospitality 
of his house with the grace of a great lord. He 
avenges his own injuries with his own hand. His 
mode of life has made him solitary and independent. 
He is ready at a moment's notice to quarrel with his 
nearest kinsman and to carry the feud through the 
years of his life. These are the signs of a religion 
of personal salvation. Where these signs appear, 
personal work, the preaching of the gospel, the min- 
istry of man to man, are the only forms in which 
the Church can serve the community. Such a thing 
as social service, the ministry of a consecrated man 
to a society, is almost impossible. The people must 
here be dealt with man by man and that which wins 
the one has no influence upon the other. The con- 



30 The Church of the Open Country 

quest of one heart does not lead to the conquest of 
the neighbor's heart. 

Period of the Household Type. The second type 
which has appeared in America is the household 
farmer. The Church represents the life of the peo- 
ple and is as faithful to the household type as to the 
pioneer. That is its duty under God. This type 
of church and community is more general through- 
out the country, for the household tillage of the 
land has been the most general type of agriculture 
in America. In Illinois this type of farming became 
general about 1835 and its period ended about 1890. 
In the Eastern States, Massachusetts and New 
York, the days of the settler whose farming was in- 
dividualist ended about 1800, and the household 
farmer possessed the land until about 1890. The be- 
ginning of the household farming period was in the 
perfection of the family group. The end of it is 
indicated by the appearance of abandoned farms, 
renters or tenants in the country, and landlords 
living in the towns. 

Its Practise and Ideals. The household farmer 
owned his land, and tilled it for the first values of 
the soil. He had neighbors and knew how to treat 
them kindly, to marry his children to their children, 
to exchange with them many social and helpful 
services, but he did not cooperate with them in eco- 
nomic welfare. The household farmer competed 
with his neighbors in getting his income, while the 
modern farmer cooperates with his neighbors in the 
securing of a livelihood. Above all, the household 



Church and Community 31 

farmer perfected the family group. His house- 
hold became the type of American life. The ideals 
of all American morality, of right feeling and of 
religion, were the outgrowth of household farming. 

Its Church Life. The Church of the household 
farmer expressed, as did the community, his mode 
of life. Unlike the Church of individualists, it pos- 
sessed a place for the children in the Sunday- 
school, even for the infants in the primary depart- 
ment. It perfected societies for women long before 
a woman's club movement gave them a new enjoy- 
ment. It organized young people's societies, which 
in the '80s and '90s blossomed forth in the Young 
People's Society of Christian Endeavor and kindred 
national movements. The country Church of the 
household type had even some organizations for 
boys, though these were uncommon. This type of 
Church is distinctly unlike that which preceded it. 
in the wealth of its recognition of family life. 
Central to its whole organization was the family 
pew. 

Facing Changed Conditions. This is the country 
Church of which we have thought in the past. It is 
this country Church which has suffered in recent 
years, and whose weakness has attracted the atten- 
tion of religious thinkers. Just as the pioneer 
Church, with its individualist preaching and its 
one method of periodic revival, was succeeded by 
the household Church, whose methods are many 
and whose various organizations would have seemed 
to the pioneer sinful, so the country Church of the 



32 The Church of the Open Country 

household farming era is being transformed into a 
new type, because the community of household 
farmer has since 1890 undergone transformation. 
The first business of the devout Christian in the 
country Church is to recognize this inevitable change 
and to foresee the type into which the Church is to 
be transformed. 

Good Features Conserved. Meantime, the coun- 
try Church of the household farmer is the type of 
Church still remaining in many parts of the coun- 
try. It is important for us to recognize the services 
and the work of this Church, and to indicate the 
ways by which it can serve the country community. 
It is important also to remember that in the future 
the new type of Church will possess all the good 
traits of those which have gone before. Just as the 
household farming Church retains the preaching of 
the gospel of personal salvation and the periodic re- 
vival of religion — a religion of the heart — so the 
Church of the newer type that is to come will pre- 
serve these individualist and primitive customs, be- 
cause they are good, along with every good custom 
of the household farmers' Church. 

Different Conditions in Canada. Conditions in 
Canada are strikingly different from those in the 
United States. Among country churches the pre- 
dominant type of Church is that of the household 
farmer. Three reasons explain this. Much of the 
country has been settled later than parts of the 
United States on the same parallels of longitude. 
Secondly, the Canadians are more tenacious, and 



Church and Community 33 

slower to change. The third reason is the settle- 
ment, in the eastern provinces, of many Scotch 
people, and kindred types, who, as will be shown 
elsewhere, have demonstrated their ability to resist 
the changes I am describing. All this is for the 
good of Canadian Christianity. The later and more 
deliberate settlement will make possible the assimila- 
tion of later experience and of a more mature 
Christian sociology. The general conservatism, if 
it be wise, can retain the best of the old, while mak- 
ing ready for the new. And the genius of certain 
national stocks will strengthen the national fiber 
against destructive change. 

General Canadian Movement. It is therefore the 
general task of Canadian Christians, so far as they 
differ from their brethren in the States, to build the 
Church upon the family group. For there will not 
be a long pioneer period in any part of Canada. 
The fine family life of those communities which 
have begun to disintegrate in the States will last 
for decades longer in many parts of Canada. It 
is to be hoped that, without impairment of this 
group-life in the churches, the newer social order 
may be taught to the people. For the latter stages 
of country life will come. The destination of all 
American farming is in the direction of what I 
have called " husbandry." Conservatism can only 
postpone it; and happy that conservatism which 
sees in the mistakes of the more swiftly moving 
" States " the sign-posts of its own future course. 

Source of Religious Competition. The Church is 



34 The Church of the Open Country 

made up of households, as the community is made 
up of farmhouses. It is a dignified assembly of 
groups. Its spirit is one of neighborliness, but not 
of cooperative unity. The farmers have kindly and 
genial relations with one another: their social 
pleasures are from common sources. They inter- 
marry, they borrow and they lend, but they are not 
unified in their farming. In social life they are one : 
in business life they are many. In business affairs 
through the working day they compete: and the 
result is that the Church of households teaches re- 
ligious competition and division; because religious 
institutions are determined in their form by eco- 
nomic experience. In his economic experience the 
household farmer is his neighbor's opponent and 
competitor. 

Lacking in Community Feeling, This explains 
why there are so many churches in the country. 
The land-farmer lived and worked for his own 
household. It seemed to him no ill that his neighbor 
should not be in the same church. He had no con- 
ception of the community as the basis of common 
welfare. His basis of living is his farm. It mat- 
ters not to him if his neighbor's farming fails. He 
has rather a pleasant feeling in his own success and 
in the contrast to his neighbor's loss. If his orchard 
has a good crop he has no regret that his neighbor's 
orchard has none, knowing that the price of apples 
may be higher. His whole life is lived in com- 
petition with those outside of his own household 
group. The result is that his religious life is an 



Church and Community 35 

experience of competition, except with the group of 
households who are within his own congregation. 

Traditional Competitive View. The household 
farmer believes that country churches are main- 
tained by competition, and this view prevails in 
many high places. Leaders among all Protestant 
churches hold with respect the view that " If you 
take the Methodist Church out of the neighborhood, 
the Presbyterian Church will die." This view is 
traditional. It comes out of the household farmers' 
way of life. It may have had truth during the era 
of household farming, but it is based on no co- 
operative principle. Communities cannot be built 
out of competition : they must be dominated by 
union. 

Impressive and United Worship. The churches 
of the household era of farming have been inspiring 
and noble institutions. The Church as an institu- 
tion grew up in the country in this time, for the 
earlier church of the pioneer could scarcely be 
called an institution. The gathering of farmers in 
their substantial vehicles from far and near on the 
Sabbath morning was a spectacle which deeply im- 
pressed the casual visitor, or the hired man as 
he came into the community. I confess that no 
scene stirs my heart more deeply than the sight of 
many horses and carriages standing about the coun- 
try church, the horse-sheds full, every tree a hitch- 
ing-post, and rows of riding-horses and carriage 
animals tethered to the fences : these all give an im- 
pression of the assembled community. The quiet 



36 The Church of the Open Country 

exterior of the meeting is in vivid contrast to its 
intense and thronged interior. The dignified voice 
of the preacher or the solemn joining in the hymn, 
complete the impression of the whole community 
assembled in church. Each man sits with his family 
and the mother with her children. The young men 
#nd women, while seated apart, are in the liveliest 
emotional consciousness of one another; and the 
choir, well aware of their importance in the service, 
are in their place. The preacher, who sees less of 
his people than of the unseen realities of which he is 
to testify, feels that upon him rests the meaning of 
the whole occasion. But in that audience every man 
has his own thoughts and every household present is 
as significant in its attendance upon worship as the 
household of the preacher. Such a country church 
is an assemblage of homes. It is a great symbol of 
social unity. 

Present Speculative Influence. The third type of 
communities in the country is the speculative. 
American country life is now undergoing the cor- 
rosive influence of exploitation. The values of 
land are swiftly changing over the whole United 
States. The day of household farming is closing. 
Few territories exhibit the household farmer as the 
dominant type throughout a whole population. In 
most of the States, even in the South, speculation 
in land has brought into the community the three 
figures, represented in many individuals, whose in- 
fluence is greater upon the Church and community 
than that of any minister of religion. These three 



Church and Community 37 

are the renter or tenant farmer, the retired farmer, 
and the landlord. Their participation in country 
life has wholly changed household farming into & 
new type. This process is not yet completed, but 
the present distress and weakness of country 
churches is a sign of its transforming influence in: 
country life. 

Money Valuing of Land. Exploitation is the 
turning of other values into money. It is not mere 
speculation, though in many communities the ex- 
ploitation of farm land has brought into existence 
land speculators. In a Western farming community,. 
I am told, the process of speculation has gone so 
far that the town supports a real estate agent for 
every thousand acres of land which is open to the 
buying and selling. This, however, is extreme. 
The usual process is one in which the farmer, who 
once thought of his property as a home, now thinks 
of it in terms of dollars and cents. The land- 
farmer, or household farmer, had no price upon his 
land. He did not know what it was worth. He 
did not usually know how much his income was. 
But gradually, in the years of migration, the farm- 
ers in the more progressive and central States, 
such as Illinois and Ohio, began to value their land 
and their homes in terms of money. 

Period of Exploitation. This must have been in 
the older and eastern States a bitter process, for 
on the land-farmer's acres were buried the ashes 
of his ancestors for two or three generations. The 
household farmer had consecrated his land by set- 



38 The Church of the Open Country 

ting God's acre in the corner of the field. The day 
came after the Civil War, with the realization that 
the first values of the land were exhausted, when 
the household farmer set off for the West. He sold 
or abandoned his land, on which his ancestors had 
lived, and began that emigration to the West which 
has characterized the last forty years. In these 
forty years farm lands have been exploited, bought 
and sold by farmers themselves. The prices of 
land at first slowly, but of late very swiftly, have 
increased. In the past ten years in the Middle West 
this increase has been in some sections about one 
hundred per cent. 1 

Giving as a Timely Message. The churches of 
speculative farmers are churches whose most marked 
characteristic is giving. We are likely to think of 
speculation as a purely destructive process. It is 
the acid bath in which the farmer's social economy 
is dipped, which burns off all that is not permanent 
in the previous economy, and prepares for the put- 
ting on of the new order in which the farmer shall 
till the land by science rather than by tradition. But 
speculation is a process of valuing things in cash. 
The Church, as all other things, comes to be esti- 
mated in terms of money. The doctrine of the 
exploiter is the doctrine of giving. This is the trans- 
formation which country churches need to make at 
the present time. Other things in the country com- 
munity are valued in money. The farmer has been 

1 Professor John Lee Coulter in the Statistical Journal, 
March, 191 1. 




RENTER S BARN AND CABIN 



Church and Community 39 

eager for cash with which to secure better machin- 
ery, suitable fertilizers for his land, education for 
his children, and other aids to progress. He is 
eager to use money in preparing himself for the 
new era into which he is going, and he is per- 
fectly right. It is important that religion be in- 
terpreted to him in terms of giving money. The 
consecration of wealth is the doctrine which the 
minister must preach to farmers in the day of buy- 
ing and selling. 

Program of Improvements. The country com- 
munity is profoundly affected in like manner by 
speculation. The problems of the community come 
to be those of new taxation for better schools, bond- 
ing the county for the construction of stone roads,, 
and securing contributions for libraries, for the 
organizing of Young Men's Christian Associations, 
and other projects which call for cash. The old- 
fashioned farmer resists these demands. He is not 
accustomed to spending large monies upon public 
projects. He is suspicious of bonds and of all in- 
vestments in anything which he cannot see. The 
pioneer or settler farmers sturdily resist these inter- 
pretations of the community in terms of cash. But 
the leaders of the community see that the process 
which puts a price upon an acre, which compels the 
old-fashioned farmer to sell the dust of his ances- 
tors, has been inspired by God and is necessary in 
the life of a growing community. 

Exploitation a Brief Transition Era. It is prob- 
able that the period of exploitation is but tempo- 



40 The Church of the Open Country 

rary. Professor Ross 1 describes the period of 
exploitation as a mere dawning of the day of 
scientific farming. It would bring great hope and 
encouragement to country ministers who suffer from 
the effects of speculation in farm land to know that 
this day is but short. Most important of all is it 
that they should know what to do in this time of 
transition. The task of the minister and of other 
community leaders is expressed in one word: the 
consecration of private wealth to the use of the 
community. 

Aims for the Country Worker. In another place 
the methods of raising money for religious uses will 
be dealt with. Here we are only interested in ur- 
ging the worker in the country to see that his rela- 
tion to these public enterprises is twofold: first, to 
arouse a spirit of public willingness to give and to 
pay; second, to watch with critical eye these in- 
vestments by taxes and all bond issues, in order to 
insure honesty and to distribute the burden with 
justice and fairness upon the present and upon 
future generations. 

Teach Doctrine of Giving. A new standard of 
expenditure must be attained in the country. It is 
the business of the religious leader in the country, 
more than of any other person, to teach the farmers 
who are prospering in cash values the doctrine of 
giving. The nature of the community and the in- 
tensified value of the community's institutions must 

1 " Agrarian Changes in the Middle West," American 
Journal of Economics, December, 1910. 



Church and Community 41" 

be made clear to country people, and a spirit too of 
sharing the prosperity which God has given must- 
be imparted to them. This spirit above all is 
religious. 

Beginnings of Organization Era. The fourth 
type of Church and community in the country is 
based upon organized or scientific farming, which is 
the destination of American agriculture. Churches 
of this type are few. Communities of organized 
farming are, except on the Pacific Coast, still fewer. 
Individual farmers who are tilling their land by 
science are many, but their total number in com- 
parison to the population of the country as a whole 
is very small. They usually constitute but a frac- 
tion of any community except in particular terri- 
tories. 

Marked Characteristics. Organized farming pre^ 
sents certain marked characteristics. These marks 
are seen in the churches of husbandmen and in the 
communities in which they live. For the mode by 
which the people of the country get their living is 
the organizing factor in religious and in community 
life. 

Dependence upon Scientist. The first of these 
characteristics is the dependence of the farmer 
upon the scientist. The tillage of the soil by the 
household group was traditional. Lessons were 
taught by the father to the son; by the old man to 
the young. Its weakness was in its inability to 
meet new situations and its lack of resources after 
the first values of the soil were exhausted. The 



42 The Church of the Open Country 

scientific farmer goes to the university for his 
methods. He reads the bulletins of the State and 
national departments. He attends the farmers' in- 
stitute. He does his own thinking in greater meas- 
ure than any countryman who preceded him, because 
he has more to think about. He has, if necessary, 
the analysis of his soil, and he frankly recognizes 
the dependence of his agriculture upon the scien- 
tific man. This dependence is as close as the rela- 
tion of the operating surgeon to the investigator 
and diagnostician. It follows that the scientific 
farmer cannot teach his own son in the present gen- 
eration. The son who comes home from college 
may even teach his father, if the father be intelli- 
gent enough to appreciate the modern learning re- 
lating to the farm. 

Principle of Cooperation. In the second place, 
scientific farming tends to be cooperative. The 
competition of household groups with one another 
disappears in the face of the common struggle to 
gain a market. Long ago Hesiod, the Greek poet, 
discovered that agriculture is cooperative by its 
very nature. It has taken American farmers a long 
time to discover this fact, by comparing the experi- 
ence of different sections. Those farmers whose 
churches and communities have survived the de- 
structive period of speculation in land are all 
strengthened by cooperation in some thorough 
form. The new cooperative tillage of the Maryland 
Eastern shore, of Kentucky, and of Oregon, which 
is described in the chapter on " Cooperation and 



Church and Community 43 

Federation," is an application of this principle an- 
nounced by Hesiod eight centuries before Christ 
that farming is cooperation. The cooperative or- 
ganizations of farmers are the greatest moral force 
in controlling the individual and imposing upon him 
standards of justice, fairness, self-sacrifice, and 
obedience. 

Use of Marginal Values. The third character- 
istic of scientific farming is the use of marginal 
values. The land-farmer in the nineteenth century 
lived by the values which lay on the top of the 
ground, abundant fertility of soil, rich resources in 
timber, unexploited mines of coal, iron, mica, or 
copper. The farmer who must organize to get a 
living makes his profit from the by-products. He 
must till the soil so that its fertility is retained and 
increased. He cannot afford to waste, for he is 
dealing with a depleted and weakened soil. The 
religious and moral character of the new era in 
agriculture is seen in this struggle of the farmer to 
live, not by first values, but by final values of the 
soil, of the wood-lot, and of his own energies. 

Example of Such Values. Marginal values are 
those by which the milk farmer lives, who main- 
tains his farm and his establishment by milking 
forty to seventy cows. But these bring him no 
profit. In the middle of the day, " between chores," 
he tills a piece of land on which perhaps he raises 
a crop ; which he sells for cash. This crop is clean 
gain. It is his marginal labor. It is done with the 
unemployed hours of his man and himself. The 



44 The Church of the Open Country 

dairy keeps up the fertility of the soil and pays the 
bills of the farm, but the extra crop of the orchard 
brings in a clean, undiminished profit. 

Church Becomes a Community Center. The 
Church of the organized farmer is an organized 
Church. Dr. Edward Judson, in New York, defines 
the institutional Church as " organized kindness." 
The country Church which ministers to scientific 
farmers might be called organized social life; for 
social life generates religion and exhibits Christian 
experiences. The Church of the scientific farmer, 
therefore, should be a local agency of the kingdom 
of God. It should embody in itself the whole com- 
munity. It should be a community center. 

Community Like One Household. For it is ob- 
vious that with the coming of organized farming 
the community has taken the place of the house- 
hold. It is indeed a large household. No longer 
do households compete with one another, for the 
farmers who are organized compete with all the rest 
of the world through a cooperative association in 
which they are all members. Thus the country 
people who till the soil by science become closely 
compacted and intimately related to one another. 
In the old time the household farmer taught his 
son how to farm. His wife taught her daughter 
how to cook and to sew. These processes are now 
taught in the community by the teacher of agri- 
culture and the teacher of domestic science. The 
farmer sits side by side with his son on the bench 
in the grange hall or in the church parlors to hear 



Church and Community 45 

a lecture and demonstration by a scientific farmer. 
The classroom becomes an essential part of the 
process of agriculture and it is a community class- 
room. 

Community Service of the Sunday-school. In 
the same manner religion is taught in the organ- 
ized farming community in the Sunday-school. In 
the old days it was taught in the household. Among 
the best families, and most devout, religion will 
continue to be taught at the fireside, and worship 
will culminate in the family altar, but the family 
altar and fireside are inadequate to the religious 
problem of a community in which men's lives are 
compacted into a social whole. For, in intense 
social life, it is as important to educate your neigh- 
bor's children as it is to educate your own. The 
devout farmer soon learns that the children of his 
hired man are a bigger influence upon his own chil- 
dren than he is himself. In order to preserve the 
religious tradition in his own house, he must bring 
up the children of his neighbor to his own stand- 
ards; hence the Sunday-school becomes the com- 
munity institution which bears up the whole task 
of religious education. The farmer takes his place 
as teacher of a Bible class. His influence on his 
own sons is exerted when they come to him in their 
turn with the sons of other men to be taught what 
he is best qualified to teach. His wife becomes the 
teacher of the primary department and all the chil- 
dren of the community come to her, including her 
own. Through this department she teaches in the 



46 The Church of the Open Country 

community much better than she could teach in her 
own home. 

Religious Education Centralized. Religion it- 
self, as understood to-day, cannot be taught in the 
household. Modern pedagogy and the methods of 
teaching which are used in the schools and colleges 
can be adopted by Sunday-schools, but cannot be 
adopted by firesides. Most parents are incapable 
of teaching in the terms of modern religious edu- 
cation. For this reason the Sunday-school becomes 
the community center in religious education. All 
the children of the countryside — not merely the 
children of church-members — can be brought to- 
gether and thus assemble for learning at the feet 
of Jesus Christ. The community has become the 
home of the individual, and in that home every 
child and every man has the influence upon every 
other which the members of a household once had 
in the earlier days upon other members. 



SCHOOLS FOR COUNTRY LIFE 



But if this attraction — the attraction of common work and social 
intercourse with a circle of friends — is to prevail in the long run 
over the lure which the city offers to eye and ear and pocket, there 
must be a change in rural education. At present country children 
are educated as if for the purpose of driving them into the towns. 
To the pleasure which the cultured city man feels in the country — 
because he has been taught to feel it — the country child is insensible. 
The country offers continual interest to the mind which has been 
trained to be thoughtful and observant; the town offers continual 
distraction to the vacant eye and brain. Yet, the education given 
to country children has been invented for them in the town, and 
it not only bears no relation to the life they are to lead, but actu- 
ally attracts them toward a town career. — Horace Plunkett 

The subject of paramount importance in our correspondence and 
in the hearings is education. In every part of the United States 
there seems to be one mind, on the part of those capable of judging, 
on the necessity of redirecting the rural schools. There is no such 
unanimity on any other subject. It is remarkable with what simi- 
larity of phrase the subject has been discussed in all parts of the 
country before the commission. Everywhere there is a demand that 
education have relation to living, that the schools should express the 
daily life, and that in the rural districts they should educate by means 
of agriculture and country-life subjects. It is recognized that all 
difficulties resolve themselves in the end into a question of education. — 
Report of the Country Life Commission 

The simple organization of the Sabbath-school makes it peculiarly 
fitted for the special service it has rendered in the rural parts of 
our land. As a force for the evangelization of urban and rural life 
it is greater than it has been at any previous time. There are two 
phases of Sabbath-school work: the first is an evangelizing agency in 
places where no local church exists; the second is as a part of the 
regular work of an established local church. In the first, it is a 
pioneer; in the second, it is "the Bible-studying-and-teaching service 
of the Church." 

The Sabbath-school has been described as " the most flexible, 
adaptable, and far-reaching institution ever designed for the con- 
version of the world." The Sabbath-school in its missionary phase 
has been one of the chief forces for the evangelization of new- 
country communities, and the pioneer of the Church on the frontier. 
Missionaries, churches, and redeemed communities throughout the land 
testify to the efficiency of this popular and rational method of 
evangelization. — J. O. Ashenhurst 



48 



Ill 

SCHOOLS FOR COUNTRY LIFE 

Religious Inspiration Needed. Nothing short of 
religious devotion will organize an adequate educa- 
tional system for the whole people. The common 
school system, based on the purpose to educate all 
the children of a commonwealth, was launched in 
Scotland and in New England at the close of the 
seventeenth century, under intense and masterful 
religious devotion. We are confronted with a task 
as great in the need of adequate education in coun- 
try communities in America. The common schools, 
the Sunday-schools, and the extension departments 
of agricultural colleges are in need of a new in- 
spiration. They will receive it only from sources 
which are essentially religious. 

Reconstruction in Denmark. The recent experi- 
ence of Denmark illustrates this thesis. 1 In forty 
years Denmark has been reconstructed as a nation, 
lifted out of the depression of a great military de- 
feat, out of debt, and out of social disorganization. 
This has been accomplished by the schoolmasters of 
Denmark. Serious observers attribute the central, 
inspiring influence to the folk high schools, estab- 

1 See Appendix A. 
49 



50 The Church of the Open Country 

lished as a religious enterprise by Bishop Grundtvig 
and his associates. 

Value of Rural Schools. The one-room rural 
schools which prevail in the country have been of 
enormous influence in American life. Their or- 
ganization as a system was one of the greatest edu- 
cational tasks in history. For they were planted 
by an advancing tide of immigration as a new con- 
tinent was being peopled. One marvels at the 
statesmanship which maps out a vast region on the 
scale of the short legs of a six-year-old child, for 
the school district is standardized by the ability of 
a little child to walk morning and night to and 
from school. 

Present Diminished Usefulness. But wonderful 
as the one-room school system is, with the passing 
of the household farming era its usefulness rapidly 
diminishes. It was established at the close of the 
pioneer period. As communities were formed in 
the beginning of settled social life, this school was 
at its highest value. While the rural household was 
complete unto itself and while the economic skill 
of the country was imparted from the father to 
the son, it was not necessary for the country schools 
to be strong. They needed only to be universal, 
simple, elastic, and systematic. The " three R's " 
were sufficient as an education for those whose real 
training for life was in the home and imparted by 
tradition from parent to child. 

Call for Reorganization. But with the coming 
of scientific farming and the reorganization of coun- 



Schools for Country Life 51 

try life, the one-room rural schools need to be reor- 
ganized. They have already lost the enthusiastic 
support which they once had from the farmer. 
Organized and scientific farmers do not find them- 
selves served as well by the one-room school as their 
fathers did in the household farming era. Instead 
of insisting upon the " three R's " alone, the or- 
ganized farmer is eagerly seeking for industrial 
training. The country school, therefore, has no 
longer the same settled place in his mind. A 
rural investigator in northern Missouri reports that 
in thirty miles of travel on country roads he saw 
not one house or barn unpainted, but every school- 
house out of repair. The farmers are building up 
everything but the country schools. The one-room 
rural school is no longer to them a serviceable in- 
stitution. These grown-up farmers are assembling 
regularly to learn in middle life the reasons of scien- 
tific agriculture, but the schoolhouse and the school- 
teacher are not a part of this new system. 

Work of Recent Writers. It should be borne 
clearly in mind that this lack in the country school 
affects the religion of the country community, and 
with equal clearness it should be remembered that 
the change in the value of the country school comes 
with the introduction of speculation into agricul- 
tural life. When the farming of a region goes 
through a rapid increase in values of land, when 
tenant farmers invade a neighborhood in large pro- 
portion, when the farm landlord comes to be a 
notable figure in agriculture, and when farmers re- 



£2 The Church of the Open Country 

tire to the towns to live, then the country schools 
need to be revised in the interest of the farmer, 
the school-teacher, and the country Church. The 
books on the country school are at the present time 
among the best books for reading among religious 
people. No writer or speaker in the country is 
more stimulating to a church audience than Pro- 
fessor H. W. Foght of Kirksville, Missouri, whose 
book, The American Rural School, illuminates the 
problem of the American rural Church. The writ- 
ings and publications of Superintendent O. J. Kern, 1 
of Winnebago County, Illinois, are of great value to 
those who would understand country life. Miss 
Mabel Carney is a writer and speaker on country 
life, whose insight and comprehension of the school 
question have qualified her to speak with equal force 
to the country minister. She has been a valuable 
helper in many conferences and schools for country 
ministers. These leaders in the reconstruction of 
country schools illustrate in their service to the 
country Church the unity of the rural problem. 
Country life is simple. That which is true of one 
institution in the country holds for the others. The 
process which changes the mind of the countryman, 
in his thought of his schools, will alter and elevate 
his thought of the Church; and all these changes of 
the rural mind are dependent upon changes in eco- 
nomic and social experience. 

Proposed Improvements. These writers on the 

1 Among Rural Schools, and Annual Report of Winnebago 
County Schools. 



Schools for Country Life 53 

American rural school believe in the improvement 
of the one-room country school, in a living salary 
for the teachers, in adequate and professional super- 
vision of country schools, and in the consolidation 
of very many country schools, independent of town 
or village. The important principle in all these 
proposed changes is the service of the country 
school to the working farmer. The changes needed 
are those which will make the school serviceable 
in the task which the farmer has to perform; 
namely, the industrial struggle by which he gets 
his living, and the social reorganization by which 
he shall live on a higher modern plane, after he 
has got a better income. In other words, the rural 
schools are called on to respond to the challenge, 
" better farming, better business, better living." 

Place Still for One-room Schools. It is not 
necessary to go into technical details here as to im- 
provement of schools in the country. The reader 
had better look to those who are school authorities 
themselves for these details, but I believe that the 
one-room country school will in many places per- 
manently survive. There are isolated valleys and 
hilly or mountainous plateaus or lonely districts in 
which the country school must be small and one 
teacher will be adequate to the needs of the few 
children in the place. There is much to be said 
for the one-room school, provided it has a good 
equipment and a devoted, well-trained teacher. 
Let us suppose, therefore, that in a fertile moun- 
tain valley there are twenty children in a popula- 



54 The Church of the Open Country 

tion not likely to be increased. What improve- 
ments are necessary to make the school a part of the 
vital reorganization of the country? 

Adequate Teacher's Salary. First of all, the 
teacher should have an adequate salary, and, what- 
ever payment is necessary by the State or by the dis- 
trict, it must be sufficient to sustain a self-respecting 
man or woman through a whole year. This is the 
basis of permanent teaching. Our school in the 
valley will not prosper, if it is not able to retain a 
teacher, once selected, who serves the needs of the 
neighborhood. Without at least three years of con- 
secutive, devoted service by a teacher any country 
school will be inefficient. No teacher can become a 
part of the vital organization of a district, if he 
does not stay there for year after year, and no coun- 
try school district can select its teacher without the 
leverage of an adequate salary. If the teacher, 
moreover, has to work at something else in vaca- 
tion, if he has not a sufficient living to attend sum- 
mer schools and improve year by year in school and 
pedagogic wisdom, the school will retrograde. 
Therefore the salary of the teacher must be ade- 
quate for a year's living. 

Adequate Supervision. Secondly, there is need 
in the open country of adequate supervision of the 
common schools. Except in New England, where 
in some States the supervision is by farmers, every 
State has county superintendents of schools. But 
the county unit is too large for one man to cover. 
One superintendent in Illinois has a territory so 




CENTRALIZED SCHOOL, INDIANA 
CENTRALIZED SCHOOL, OHIO 



Schools for Country Life 55 

large that it would require forty days, and seven 
hundred and twenty-two miles of travel, to visit the 
schools for which he is responsible. Moreover, ade- 
quate supervision should be by trained teachers. 
At present the superintendent may or may not be 
a teacher, but he must be a politician. It would be 
better for the supervisors of the county to appoint 
the superintendent than for the voters to elect him. 
For the training of these superintendents there 
should be special courses provided. These meas- 
ures would give adequate supervision of rural 
schools, in the interest of the country community. 

A New Grouping. One-room school districts 
should be grouped on a new principle. The county 
unit is too large and the township is often too 
small for proper supervision, but the visits of the 
trained superintendent should be frequent enough 
to give him intimate command of details in every 
one of the schools under his charge. This will give 
some kind of team work in the problem of rural 
education. The teacher will not be loaded with the 
whole burden of a separate educational system. 
Behind him will stand the trained and official super- 
vision of the superintendent; and the country school 
district will become a part, through his presence and 
the competition with other neighboring districts 
which he shall skilfully suggest, of the larger rural 
community. 

Rural School Consolidation. But for most of 
the schools in the country consolidation and cen- 
tralization of the schools will be necessary. By this 



56 The Church of the Open Country 

is meant not the assembling of country pupils in 
the village or town but the organization of the 
educational problem out among the farms. For the 
life of a town or village is in an industrial process 
different from that which controls the life of coun- 
try people. Farming is the greatest of all voca- 
tions, and it needs schools of its own. It is the 
fundamental and most pervasive of industries, and 
the schooling of the boy or girl for the farm will be 
a more effective preparation for all occupations 
than will the schooling of boys and girls for com- 
merce, for mechanical trades, or for professions. 

Districts Merged in One. We believe, therefore, 
that the schools of the rural community should be 
merged in one. The country community has a 
radius of the team haul. The horse-drawn vehicle 
for a long time to come will standardize the range 
of rural social experience. At the center, there- 
fore, of the team-haul radius should be built an ade- 
quate school building. The one-room schools 
should be closed. Districts may thus be assembled, 
two or five or seven or nine in number, and their 
children transported daily to the central school in 
wagons hired for that purpose. Nothing will do 
more for the reorganizing of country life and the 
cultivation of the community spirit than this daily 
assembling of the children from the households 
which have a common experience in the country, 
to study together the problems of life. 

Example of Completed Process. This process 
has practically been completed in several counties 



Schools for Country Life 57 

of northeastern Ohio. They have passed through 
pioneer, household, and speculative eras, and are in 
the dawn of organized agriculture. The consolida- 
tion of schools is an evidence of their attainment 
of this maturity. 

Modernized Plant and Its Purpose. The con- 
solidated school as it exists in mature communities 
is a brick building, generally placed on a country 
road at a point independent of town or village 
centers. It has four rooms and an auditorium 
overhead for recreation and for public gatherings. 
It has in the basement an adequate heating plant 
with a water-pressure system. The John Swaney 
school in Putnam County, Illinois, has a room in 
the basement devoted to manual training. It has in 
one of the classrooms an apparatus for teaching 
cooking and sewing, and the auditorium on the 
third floor is large enough to seat two hundred and 
fifty people. It is fitted up for basket-ball games. 
Out-of-doors this school has about twenty-four 
acres in a beautiful campus shaded with majestic 
trees and containing a baseball diamond, football 
gridiron, and several tennis courts. There is also 
an old school building now turned into a home for 
the five resident teachers. This school has main- 
tained its teaching courses with a continuous mem- 
bership year after year. There are four teachers 
and a principal. Such a school can have — and in- 
evitably it will have — a system of teaching agricul- 
ture. For the demand which the farmer is making, 
either actively or passively of the country school, 



58 The Church of the Open Country 

is that it shall teach scientific agriculture. It will 
teach not only agriculture but country life, not to 
make farmers, but to teach children in terms of 
their own experience. The John Swaney school 
and the school at Rock Creek have a piece of land 
devoted to the purposes of an experiment farm. 
At the John Swaney School this farm supervision 
is under the Illinois State Experiment Station. 
This teaching is not for the making of farmers, 
but men and women. It must be more than a mere 
school of rural money-making. The teaching of 
agriculture needed in the schools is for the purpose 
of training in country life. The country school 
must make the open country worth while. It will 
teach agriculture as the basis of an ideal life, rather 
than as a quick way of profits. 

Advantages of Riding to School. Families on the 
outer bounds of the consolidated school district 
sometimes complain of its exceptional burdens 
which fall upon them, but this difficulty inheres in 
the present system. The small boy who lives on the 
outer boundary of a school district two miles or 
three from the one-room school, has exceptional 
hardships in his daily trudge to school. Many a 
middle-aged man remembers the chilblains and 
frosted ears or finger-tips from the long walk to 
school, and even in summer the weary trudge with 
books and dinner pail was a burden. In the State 
of Minnesota, where consolidated schools have been 
highly perfected, the children who come through 
the bitter winter in the stages many miles to school 



Schools for Country Life 59 

arrive in better condition and do better work 
throughout the day than the children who live 
near-by and walk. 

Results of Religious Motive. These two Illinois 
schools were consolidated under the influence of 
religious men. John Swaney is a Quaker and his 
action in giving land and money for this school 
was in obedience to the principles of the Quaker 
Meeting, for the Friends have always been organ- 
izers of communities in the country. The group 
of farmers at Rock Creek, of whom Mr. R. E. Bone 
was the leader, are Presbyterians and their influ- 
ence on consolidating the public schools of Rock 
Creek has been a religious ministry to the com- 
munity in which their church is the only house of 
worship. These Christian men have interpreted for 
their time the duty of Christian citizens in this 
building up of the community through the schools. 

Social and Church Center. The consolidated 
schools of these mature farming communities in 
the Middle West are great social centers. The daily 
coming and going of the children turns the tide 
of social life toward the center. Dr. Willet M. 
Hayes of the Department of Agriculture at Wash- 
ington is an ardent believer in the consolidated 
school district as the unit in rural life. He believes 
that at every consolidated school there should be a 
a church, an experiment farm, a playground, and 
in one of the public buildings thus provided he 
would furnish rooms, if necessary, for a rural 
Young Men's Christian Association. There should 



6o The Church of the Open Country 

be at the center also the residences of the leaders 
of the community; teachers, preachers, organizers 
of social life. It would follow, and in these mature 
communities it does follow, that the streams of social 
influence would flow in and out of this center and 
unite the whole countryside. Here the young men 
and women will form their attachments for a life- 
time and here the farmers and their neighbors will 
meet at the periodic gatherings for recreation. At 
this center the entertainer, the lecturer and musician, 
will find their audiences, and hither people will come 
on the day of rest for their common worship. In- 
evitably the habits of community fellowship will 
generate habits of common worship. The commun- 
ity by its own forces thus released and organized 
will gather around the common center and place 
there or near at hand the meeting-house for the 
worship of God. 

Sections Organized. Such consolidated schools 
are numerous in Indiana. There are a few in Penn- 
sylvania. There are several counties organized in 
northern Iowa. In Georgia a whole section of 
farming country was settled since the war by people 
who in slavery days were poor, and their intense 
social inclinations have led them, on the one hand, 
to exclude the Negro, and on the other to con- 
solidate their own educational and social interests. 
Every one of these farming sections has attained 
to rapid maturity. The centralized country school 
is at once the effect and the cause of agricultural 
maturity. 



Schools for Country Life 61 

Work of the Agricultural Colleges. Among the 
strong influences working for the betterment of 
country life is the extension work of the agricul- 
tural colleges. State and national departments of 
agriculture send out their lecturers, organizers, and 
demonstrators. These men and women have been 
in the past ten years the heralds of organized farm- 
ing. The story of this influence goes back to the 
Land Grant Act in 1862, by which valuable lands 
were assigned by the national government to the 
various States for the purposes of agricultural edu- 
cation. These colleges are therefore at work in 
every State. For a long time their influence was 
small. Their teachers were called book farmers. 
But within the past ten years they- have got hold 
of their work with a more social grasp. This has 
been accomplished both by the improvement of the 
courses and by the more thorough scientific train- 
ing of the teachers, and above all by the extension 
work of these colleges, through lecturers, demon- 
strators, and organizers. This is not the place for a 
canvass of their work. Enough to say that in every 
State the church or school in the country has a 
right to claim the services of teachers or lecturers 
from the State college or State department of agri- 
culture. In some of the States, as in New York, 
these speakers are furnished within certain limits 
without cost to the community. These demonstra- 
tors are of great value, especially in the South, 
where they are fighting the battle of the farmer 
against the enemies of the cotton and the corn crop. 



62 The Church of the Open Country 

Typical Instances. A good illustration of their 
efficiency is in a church in Texas of the Baptist 
denomination. The ladies of this church under 
the guidance of the expert from Washington are 
regularly hiring a piece of land from a farmer, 
planting it according to the specifications furnished 
by the expert, and hiring the tillage of the crop in 
accordance with his rules. They have reaped year 
by year a substantial profit on the transaction for 
their church funds; but they have done a greater 
thing in demonstrating to the farmer both that 
the Church would teach better farming and better 
living and also that the science of the Washington 
department is better business. In Oklahoma there 
are farmers who under the direction of the Wash- 
ington expert are leasing land to their tenants and 
writing into the lease the specifications which re- 
quire scientific tillage of their soil. Thus the fer- 
tility of the soil is preserved, and the profit both of 
the farmer and of the owner are raised to the 
highest point. There are churches in New York 
State which, combining to form a farmers' club, 
invite the experts from Cornell University to lec- 
ture year after year in the systematic education of 
the farmers as to the economic use of their soil and 
maintenance of it for generations to come. 

Value for Church Life. This use of scientific 
agriculture is necessary to the upbuilding and to 
the survival of the country Church. Professor T. 
N. Carver, of Harvard University, in a recent ad- 
dress, has insisted that the Church should promote 



Schools for Country Life 63 

scientific husbandry in the interest of the whole com- 
munity and in the interest of its own future. His 
thesis is that organized religion in the country is de- 
pendent on that intelligence and that economic pros- 
perity which are involved in better farming for its 
continued intelligence and for its moral power. 

Era of Academies. There was a time when in 
country communities there were academies, usu- 
ally founded by the Churches and owned by them, 
which took the place for country people of the col- 
lege in modern life. They were centers of culture. 
Their teachers were classical scholars and they im- 
parted to the sons and daughters of the farmers the 
high ideals and the knowledge of the great world 
which dignified the household farmer. These 
schools had a great influence. They were frankly 
religious in their foundation, but with the exten- 
sion of the high school system under the State con- 
trol very many of them have been closed. Little 
by little the subsidies of Church boards have been 
withdrawn, scholars have been unwilling to pay 
tuition for this schooling when they could have 
good secular training in the high schools in the 
near-by towns. This has been a great loss in coun- 
try life. 

May Become Folk Schools. The high school is 
cold and indifferent. It is often dominated by 
politics and its ideals are generally lower than were 
those of the old academy, as the ethical and esthetic 
standards are not equal to those of the academy. 
It is useless, however, to lament the days which will 



64 The Church of the Open Country 

never be restored, and the academies are mentioned 
here in order to suggest that those which can be re- 
vived should be transformed into folk high schools, 
such as have had a great influence in Denmark. 1 

Must Have Country Emphasis. These folk high 
schools have all the enthusiasm of the modern 
Chautauqua, with an added thoroughness. They 
have the precise and orderly curriculum of the old 
academy, but their term is not more than six months, 
while the academy course was often as long as six 
years. Their purpose is industrial training which 
shall fit the country boy to live in the country and 
the girl to prefer the farmhouse as her home, while 
the academies taught a classical culture which in- 
troduced the farmer's son into the great world. 
The suggestion is, therefore, that the academy be 
completely transformed and the currents of its life 
reversed. If it is to live in the days to come it 
shall no longer be a stepping-stone out of the Coun- 
try community, a gangway for going off into the 
city, but it shall become an anchorage in the country 
community, an organizing of motives for agricul- 
ture and for work. 

Ideal Enthusiasm. These folk schools, however, 
possess one, and it is the central, characteristic of 
the old academy schools; they are filled with en- 
thusiasm, with a national and patriotic and religious 
spirit. The old academies were centers of the 
noblest idealism of their day. They trained men 
for leadership. The folk schools have been in Den- 

1 See Appendix A. 



Schools for Country Life 6g 

mark centers of enthusiasm. They have written 
and sung their own songs. They have filled the 
whole country with their music and their happy 
spirit. The following song is one of the most popu- 
lar in Denmark. It was written by Bishop Grundt- 
vig, the founder of these schools, and this transla- 
tion is made by Mr. George Koefod Fernstrom. 

Church-bell, lost in great and noisy city, 
Thou wert cast for towns where far and nigh 

All can hear whene'er a babe is weeping 
Or a mother sings her lullaby. 

When a child I lived near fields and forest, 
Like a heaven to me was Christmas morn, 

Like an angel's voice, glad tidings bringing, 
Told thy chimes of joy to mankind borne. 

Higher still thy notes my soul uplifted 
When they rang with Easter-sun's first ray, 

Chimed : " Rejoice, thy Savior has arisen ! 
Thou, too, rise in dawn of Easter-day!" 

Lovely, too, in harvest time to hear thee 
In the evening hours with quiet blest, 

List'ning, while thy heavenly voice comes floating 
Over earth to call all souls to rest. 

Yes, whenever now the curfew tells me 
That the sun is down, the birds asleep, 

With the flowers I bow my head and softly 
In between thy strokes this prayer will creep : 

Church-bell ! tho' my dust shall never hear thee 

Tolling over it, O tell them all, 
Cheer my dear ones, tell them thither went he, 

Leaving as the sun sets in the fall. 

Use for the Sunday-school. What has been said 
about common schools rises often to its best in 
the country in the Sunday-school. The reader asks, 



66 The Church of the Open Country 

" How shall these things be done ? " I would not 
assert that the Sunday-school can do them all, but 
the beginning of the reconstruction of a country 
place is often the founding of a Sunday-school. 
The limitations of Sunday-school work are well 
known and you will find these limitations if you do 
Sunday-school work; but it is well to go ahead to 
the limit before you try another method. Country 
people are religious. They believe that their chil- 
dren should learn religion. More than they crave 
the gospel for themselves, they believe in it for their 
little ones. It is frequently possible to enlist rough 
men who know no Scripture and profess no religion 
in the support of an active school for the children 
on Sunday, because of the universal belief of all 
serious men in the necessity of religious training 
for the young. 

Its Appeal to Even Rough Men. There is here 
a very profound religious thought. The president 
of a noted theological seminary tells the story of 
a Sunday-school organizer in Michigan whose work 
brought him to a godless, disorderly town, with no 
religious services whatever. When he announced 
his intention of organizing a Sunday-school the 
violent element of the community announced that 
they would break it up. The Sunday-school man 
went calmly ahead, trusting in God, and his help 
came from a strange source. Feeling in the com- 
munity mounted high as Sunday morning ap- 
proached, and most of the population were present 
at the meeting to discuss the proposed Sunday- 



Schools for Country Life 67 

school. When he called for those interested in the 
school, only a few women responded. But after 
his address, a rough figure stepped forward from 
among the men and facing the preacher said that he 
had " heard tell " that some one was going to break 
up this Sunday-school. For his part he thought 
it was bad enough for the grown people in this 
neighborhood, and he would like to see something 
done for the children. He concluded his brief re- 
marks by declaring that he could not teach — even 
within profanely described limits — but he promised 
to attend the Sunday-school every time it met and 
stand at the door and " bust " perdition out of any 
man who tried to interfere. He was the biggest 
leader of rowdies in the neighborhood and all the 
rough element feared him. There was really no 
profanity in his offer: his language was perfectly 
understood by the crowd, and he was as good as 
his word. Under his fostering protection, purely 
physical in outward form, the Sunday-school grew 
and thrived and shortly had abundance of support 
from all sources. 

A Means of Rural Reconstruction. No other 
method of religious teaching has so great actual 
value in America. If the Sunday-school leaders 
but knew it, they have the vehicle for rural recon- 
struction. The possibilities of Sunday-school teach- 
ing have not been reached, because the leadership 
of the Sunday-school forces is too often conserva- 
tive, timorous, and prejudiced. This situation, 
however, is rapidly changing, for the Sunday-school 



68 The Church of the Open Country 

leadership of the country is taking advanced ground 
as to the place of the Sunday-school in the solution 
of all the problems of the Church. The new- 
graded courses are built with the one distinct pur- 
pose of training a generation of Christians for 
faithful and efficient service. This will be a great 
help, for the essentials for building the rural com- 
munity are in the Sunday-school, which is inter- 
denominational. It is an elastic and an inexpensive 
medium of religious work and its appeal is to the 
young. Above all it is a religious work, and to 
this day there is no other call which can bring coun- 
try people to the center of the community all stand- 
ing at attention to the same degree to which a re- 
ligious call can assemble them. 

Devotional Access to the Community. How- 
ever, the rule in rural work is to do that for which 
you have leaders. Bearing in mind, then, that the 
Sunday-school will be limited in its value by the 
largeness of mind possessed by its leaders, let us 
consider it as a means of rural reconstruction. Its 
first great value is its devotional access to the com- 
munity. The Sunday-school offers the Bible to 
country people. It does not need to plead for its 
cause. They already desire its ministry. It can 
be therefore the thin edge of the wedge, however 
broad the head shall be. 

Service of the New and Old Testaments. The 
Sunday-school, therefore, should teach the New 
Testament for its spirit and the Old Testament for 
its country life inspiration. The New Testament 



Schools for Country Life 69 

commands the personal devotion of individuals. It 
is the great book for leaders. Jesus is the master of 
the masters of men. The inspiration for individ- 
uals who are to serve will be found in his words and 
in the story of his deeds. In approaching, there- 
fore, the Old Testament as the great book of coun- 
try life, the scholars should be taken every year into 
the Gospels and into the story of the early Church 
for its power of compelling personal devotion. 

Authority and Influence of Jesus. The authority 
of Jesus Christ over the individual soul must always 
be the clue to every social endeavor. This will be 
called evangelism by many, and the word is excel- 
lent if it be understood in its broadest meaning as 
a preparation for service. Central to this melting 
of the heart and offering of it to the community in 
the name of God must ever be the influence of 
Jesus himself, in the story of the Gospels for the 
little children, in the history of his life for adoles- 
cents, and in the development of this history 
through the apostles and the early Church for 
adults. The influence of this New Testament teach- 
ing is overpowering. If the leaders of the com- 
munity be brought in their preparation directly 
into contact with the actual story of the Master's 
life from his birth unto his glorious crucifixion and 
resurrection, and the tremendous days before he de- 
parted from the eyes of men, it will abide with them 
in all the ministry for which they are being pre- 
pared. 

Group of Leaders' Study. The value in the Sun- 



yo The Church of the Open Country 

day-school of a group study by the leaders them- 
selves must be mentioned. This group is commonly 
called the teachers' training class, but I shrink from 
the term because we are considering something 
more real than such a formal meeting could be. 
The important thing is to assemble kindred spirits 
whose devotion can be blended in one. If it be 
necessary for this purpose to omit any of the teach- 
ers, then the group should be assembled in a suitable 
place, including only those who can be trusted. By 
all means the center of the community for devotion 
and for service should be the periodic meeting for 
the study of the Scripture to be used in the school 
and for the planning of other work. Here only 
kindred spirits shall be present who will violate no 
confidence and who will unite in a devotion to the 
Master and to the community. 

A Meeting for Counsel. Where the uniform les- 
sons are used the weekly lesson will have its place, 
but this should not be considered formal. The 
teachers' meeting is not a place for cramming or 
a substitute for study on the part of the teacher. 
Where the graded lessons are taught there will 
be no opportunity for definite lesson study. In 
either case ample time should be taken up with 
a study and discussion of methods of teaching. 
The literature on this subject from a Sunday- 
school standpoint is abundant, and should be widely 
used. Anything that will help make a more effi- 
cient Sunday-school will be a long step in solving 
the problem of religious education in the country. 



Schools for Country Life 71 

The program should include frank, earnest discus- 
sion of every interest of the community and of 
every person, so far as is helpful, in the com- 
munity. This meeting should be for the purpose 
of planning and forwarding the conversion of men 
and their enlistment in the service of the commu- 
nity. At this place the influence of these leaders 
should be determined in common and their action 
toward every project in the whole community should 
be pledged. 

United Prayer and Planning for Community. 
Such a meeting should never close without devoted 
and common prayer, not formal, but earnest and 
shared as far as possible by all. If this central 
heart of the community cannot beat in terms of 
prayer, it will not be safe for the openness of speech 
and frankness of discussion to be observed which 
I have commended. But if the meeting can be 
genuinely devotional, then it can be entirely con- 
fidential. Such a gathering of leaders central to a 
working Sunday-school can lift the whole commu- 
nity in the name of Christ. 

Gospel of the Country. The Old Testament is 
the gospel of country life for Christian folk. It 
is the story of the settlement of a wandering people 
in a holy land. America is to her people the prom- 
ised land, but its promise of freedom and of a 
righteous commonwealth moving in freedom to the 
ends of justice has not yet been satisfied. We are 
in America at some such stage of development as is 
pictured in the Book of Judges. " Every man does 



72 The Church of the Open Country 

what is right in his own eyes," and the great period 
of the development of the American commonwealth 
is to come. We are disappointed and disillusioned 
of many early ideals. Puritanism from New Eng- 
land does not satisfy serious and earnest men as 
once it did. The Quakerism and the Presbyterian- 
ism of Pennsylvania are not convincing to the chil- 
dren of the Quakers and of the Scotch-Irish; nor 
is the aristocratic faith of the old Southern States 
believed in the South as once it was believed. Yet 
the people have hope in God and religious feeling is 
general throughout the country. Like the Old 
Testament Jews we are wandering. The farmer is 
not settled nor contented on the land. When he 
has secured a competence he does not remain a 
farmer, but desires to retire to the town. Men are 
not contented to produce and they do not teach 
their children to be producers, but more and more 
the exodus from the country is increasing the class 
of consumers and diminishing those who raise the 
food and raw materials. We need the new doc- 
trine which Professor L. H. Bailey of Cornell Uni- 
versity describes under the title, " The Holy 
Earth." 

Up-to-date Messages. The teaching of the Old 
Testament through Sunday-schools is the service 
which religious people can render in making of the 
farmer a permanent and a happy tiller of the soil. 
Its legislation was for an agricultural people and 
its hymns, which we call psalms, are the songs of 
a rural people who love the land, the hills and the 



Schools for Country Life JZ 

mountains, as few Americans love the country. Its 
doctrine of Providence rises to its height in that 
simplest of the psalms about the shepherd and his 
sheep. The messages of the prophets were obvi- 
ously sermons preached by great souls made anxious 
because the people were deserting the land, and 
moving into the cities. Isaiah denounces those 
things which are done to-day in Indiana, Illinois, 
and Iowa. The evils of absentee landlordism, the 
decadence of the retired farmer, and the pitiful 
condition of the tenant farmer are all pictured in 
the histories and prophecies and the legislation of 
the Old Testament. It is assuredly not asking too 
much of the Sunday-school in the country that these 
lessons of country life should be taught in the same 
religious spirit in which they were first spoken and 
written. 

Some Required Teachings. Very often the 
bounds of the Sunday-school are at the covers of the 
Bible. Few Sunday-school teachers have been able 
to use the Sunday-school as a means of teaching 
patriotism, the knowledge of missions, and social 
service. If the Sunday-school cannot have classes 
in these great themes, if it is impossible in the coun- 
try for citizenship so to be taught in a class of men 
that the buying and selling of votes shall be ex- 
tinguished by the members of that class in that 
community, then these classes and groups must be 
assembled elsewhere. But the Sunday-school is 
the simplest medium for the teaching of righteous- 
ness and of every religious message needed by the 



74 The Church of the Open Country 

community, and in the Sunday-school all these ef- 
forts to teach the young and the old in the name of 
God should be organized. 

Call for New Ideals. The great business, how- 
ever, of the schoolmaster, whether he be paid or 
unpaid, professional or volunteer, is to idealize 
country life. Ideals do not come in books, but they 
grow out of experience. Those which come through 
books are often imported and artificial. They are 
cherished in the mind, but not practised in the life. 
Such ideals are false and delusive. Ideals that are 
true grow out of situations and conditions. Coun- 
try life is a great situation, and as " new condi- 
tions make new duties," the study of country life 
rouses men in our day to new services and new 
work. Therefore the greatest religious ministry 
which we can render in the country to-day is the 
dignifying of life and work in the open country. 
There at our hand are beauty, health, and every 
spring of sentiment. Mankind loves the country in- 
stinctively, if only he may find reasons there for 
living and sources there of social contentment. The 
business of the religious leaders is to bring God 
into the country and make country life a religion. 
This is what it means to idealize country life. It 
cannot be imported, but the ideals of country life 
must be new, modern, and must grow out of the 
experience of people now living in that country 
place. Such ennobling of the life of the commu- 
nity will call on every resource of the country Church 
and of its people. Without this dignifying of the 



Schools for Country Life 75 

community there can be no religion for the people 
who live there, for they will always be discon- 
tented and desiring to live elsewhere. They will 
have the heart of nomads and they can never rise 
above the morals of nomads, for " Out of the heart 
are the issues of life." The business of the country 
Church is to convert the heart of the countryman 
from the wandering and speculative, discontented 
state into the settlement, with happiness and abiding 
peace, in the holy land of America. 



RURAL MORALITY AND 
RECREATION 



The " play of the spirit " is not an empty phrase. It is always 
the spirit that plays. Our bodies only work. The spirit at play is 
what I mean by the higher life. 

Play is the pursuit of ideals. When released from the daily work, 
the mill we have to tread in order to live, then we strive to become 
what we would be if we could. When we are free we pursue those 
ideals which indicate and create character. If they lead us toward 
wholesome things, — literature, music, art, debate, golf, tennis, horse- 
back riding, and all of the other things that are wholesome and good, — 
then our lives are rounded out, balanced, and significant. 

If education is " equipping for life," then it ought to be divided 
into two parts, equipment for work and equipment for play. If edu- 
cation is bound to provide us with the luxuries of the body, it ought 
also at least to furnish us with the necessities of the soul. It must 
tell us, not only how to get the most out of the working hours, but 
also how to spend most profitably and joyously the hours that 
remain. — Luther H. Gulick 

The Church must provide directly or indirectly some modern equiva- 
lent for the huskings, apple bees, quiltings, and singing schools of the 
old days. In some way or other young men and young women must 
have opportunity for unconstrained intercourse, free from self- 
consciousness and artificiality. This may take the form of clubs, 
parties, picnics, excursions, or what you please. One rule is abso- 
lute: the Church must not attempt to take away the theater, the 
dance, the card party, unless it can give in its place, not merely a 
religious or intellectual substitute, like a prayer-meeting or a literary 
society, but a genuine social equivalent. — William DeWitt Hyde. 

Our argument rests upon the favorable showing of the country 
as a whole as compared with the city as a whole. As tested by the 
symptoms of degeneracy, the country is in as healthful a state as 
the city, where the advantages and wholesome influences of civiliza- 
tion are massed; where education is at its best; where eloquence finds 
its opportunity, and art gathers its treasures; where wealth commands 
all resources, and taste has every gratification; where churches are 
powerful, and every social institution cooperates in the exaltation of 
human life. That the country is not distanced by the city in social 
and moral development almost exceeds belief, or to use the terms 
with which we began, the line of averages in social and moral values 
is at a surprising height in the country. Now if a part of the rural 
communities fall below this line, then other communities rise above 
it; assuredly as many are above as below the line, or it is falsely 
called an average. — Wilbert L. Anderson 



78 



IV 
RURAL MORALITY AND RECREATION 

New Estimate of Play. Religious people have 
always recognized the close connection between the 
amusements of the community and public morals. 
The churches of old times used to forbid their mem- 
bers to attend meetings for amusement. The ethi- 
cal character of play was recognized, but the austere 
policies of the Church recognized only its immoral 
tendencies. In modern times serious people look 
on play as a moral process, having close and inti- 
mate relations with conscience. What we do for 
hire, or under the orders of other people, or in the 
routine of life is done because we have to. We do 
not choose the minor acts of study in school, of 
work in the factory, of labor on the house, of com- 
position in writing a book. All these little acts are 
part of a routine which is imposed upon us and we 
call them work. But play is entirely voluntary. 
Every action is chosen, and expresses will and 
preference. Therefore, play is highly moral. It is 
the bursting up of our own individuality, and it 
expresses, especially in the lesser things, the prefer- 
ences of life. 

Moral Value of Team-work. Especially is team- 
work, which characterizes organized play, influen- 

79 



8o The Church of the Open Country 

tial in training men in the minor moralities. I am 
going to plead in this chapter for these little moral- 
ities, the lesser goodnesses of life. The great 
school for training men in these little things 
that make up the bulk of character is team- 
work and cooperation in play. Here is the school 
of obedience to others, of self-sacrifice for a com- 
pany and for a common end, of honor and truthful- 
ness, of the subordination of one to another, of 
courage, of persistent devotion to a purpose, and of 
cooperation. " The reason why farmers cannot co- 
operate when they are grown up," says a well- 
known country minister, " is in the fact that they 
did not learn team-play when they were boys. 
They never learned to work together and they can- 
not obey one another." 

Religious Basis of Morals. There are some 
Christian people who do not care to train men in 
morality. I sat in a public religious assembly dur- 
ing a tedious discussion over a temperance report. 
The advocates of temperance desired ample time 
for their subject, and finally secured it. At one mo- 
ment in the discussion a black-clad clergyman leaned 
back impatiently in his seat and said, " What is the 
use of all this bother? It is nothing but a moral 
question, anyway ! " Such a man will have no 
sympathy with the demand for ethical training. 
But the sources of morality are in religious faith. 
The great imperatives of personal duty are locked 
up with the belief in God and the devotion of the 
soul to Jesus Christ. My purpose in this chapter 



Rural Morality and Recreation 81 

is to urge that recreation be used by religious people 
as a means of moral discipline and for the training 
of young people and working people in righteous 
character, both in little and in great things. 

Country Temperance Work. The first word on 
this subject must be to the praise of the country 
Church in its work for the temperance movement. 
Thirty years ago temperance meant pledge-signing. 
It was not then a rural movement as to-day it is. 
The whole scope of temperance reform in those 
days consisted in securing individual pledges. Men 
were enlisted as total abstainers and the bulk of the 
movement was measured by the number who had 
signed the pledge. Not only drunkards and tip- 
plers were solicited, but the lists were filled with 
the names of boys and girls and of sober, serious 
people. It was like a great many other individualist 
movements. 

Growth of Local Option. The service of the 
country Church has been to socialize the temperance 
movement. The farmer has learned to hate the 
saloon. Under the leadership of country churches, 
which became the centers of discussion, tem- 
perance reform has been made a community reform. 
It has been transferred from pledge-signing to local 
option. In some States it has become a common- 
wealth reform. In these instances the State is pre- 
dominantly agricultural, and the farmers vote for 
State-wide prohibition. But the most general and 
the most mighty temperance reform in America has 
been the farmer's movement for local option. The 



82 The Church of the Open Country 

pledge has been signed by communities and by 
counties. This has been wrought within the past 
twenty years. No one can say that the country 
Church is decadent or without force while this 
splendid record attests its virility and its social 
power. The temperance movement, however, is 
cited at this point as an illustration of the moral 
duty of country churches in building communities. 
The temperance reform is only half completed. It 
has been a negative movement for the expulsion of 
saloons from communities. The country com- 
munity is empty, swept, and garnished, but in this 
process no positive or constructive moral work has 
been done. There is need of deliberate upbuilding 
of country life by the country Church. 

Constructive Work Needed. This weakness of 
temperance reform is illustrated in a town in New 
England from which the sale of liquor has been 
abolished for a quarter of a century. Moreover, 
the law is generally observed. There is no fault to 
be found with the temperance principles of this 
town, but temperance people and temperance re- 
forms have no influence there. There is neither a 
local option nor a prohibition list of voters. It is 
impossible to arouse any interest in temperance, be- 
cause the policies of the temperance movement have 
been so purely negative. Their success has been 
self-effacing. No sooner are they enacted and ob- 
served than their influence is erased. This town, 
however, is far from being a good town. The stand- 
ards are low. The one church in the town is weak, 



Rural Morality and Recreation 83 

though the people are religious. There are about 
forty votes for sale in every election and these 
voters who are for sale determine the character of 
the town. Leading citizens condone the sale of 
votes as a necessary evil. Moreover, there is a 
certain number of young men and women in the 
town who are immoral. Year by year the presence 
of this fixed measure of immorality testifies to the 
existence of causes of wrong-doing. There is no 
organization of the town for moral training. 
Among certain people low standards prevail and 
nobody is attempting to raise their standards. It 
was not enough, therefore, for the moral better- 
ment of this town, to expel the saloon. There must 
be brought in something as powerful for good as 
the saloon was for evil. It is within the power of 
the country Church to organize the people for well- 
doing just as much as it was in her power to organ- 
ize them against ill-doing. 

Enlistment of Recreation. The organizations to 
accomplish this end will be recreative. Not that 
these are the only constructive moral methods. 
Universal education has done a great service for 
public morality. One does not need to write books 
now urging the Church to support the common 
schools. I will not be understood, therefore, as 
urging anything except that which can now be effi- 
ciently added by the Church to the moral culture 
of the people. The business of the Church is to 
promote that which being added can accomplish the 
greatest good. 



84 The Church of the Open Country 

Its Moral Worth Demonstrated. The experience 
of recent years has shown that organized play has 
moral, constructive power. The Young Men's 
Christian Association and similar bodies have 
used gymnasiums and playgrounds for the develop- 
ment of physical life, and have discovered that un- 
wittingly ethical service has been done to those 
whose bodies they thought to improve. At first 
Associations put the entrance to the gymnasium 
near the entrance to the prayer-meeting, believing 
that the prayer-meeting alone could justify the 
gymnasium. Now they see that the gymnasium has 
values of its own, and the best of these values are 
the moral gains attained by those who take part 
in the organized play of the Association. 

Young Women's Christian Association. The 
Young Women's Christian Association has with 
even finer appreciation used recreation for the build- 
ing of character. They have discovered in open- 
air games, and in the associations of club life for 
girls, in the gymnasium and in that greatest essen- 
tial of all, the constant friendly association of 
young persons, that moral character is strengthened 
and the individual is sustained by standards arising 
from intercourse, from spontaneous action, and 
from fellowship. 

Recent Extension of Play. Settlement workers 
too have experimented in the play exercises among 
the children of the poor. Most of these workers 
are sons and daughters of the churches. They 
enter their service in a religious spirit. They have 






Rural Morality and Recreation 85 

come to believe that play has power to build up con- 
science and character. Of course this building up 
is in the littles of small brick and mortar, but the 
best constructions in character are made of the in- 
finitely small. The worst undermining of character 
is in the details of daily conduct. Dr. Luther H. 
Gulick is perhaps the highest authority among re- 
ligious and educational and humanitarian people 
upon this subject, and he teaches that play, because 
of its highly voluntary character, trains men in a 
better morality than does work. 

Pioneer Era Without Play. The story of play 
and of morality is interwoven with the develop- 
ment of life in the open country. In the pioneer 
period of American farming morality showed the 
vices and virtues of independence. Pioneers are 
lonely people and they have no social virtues. They 
should not be expected to have them. Men cannot 
live through the days of a year alone, and then 
practise when called on the virtues of close social 
life. The churches of the pioneer period inculcate 
the virtues of independence. The great transac- 
tion is to them the salvation of the individual soul, 
and they teach that other moral processes are prob- 
ably sinful. Amusements in this period were few. 
Among the mountaineers in the South to-day there 
is no pjay. Even the children are solitary. Team- 
work outside of the town is unknown. They who 
attend meetings for amusement are rebuked for it. 
The recreations of pioneers and mountaineers are 
deeds not of team-work, but of personal prowess. 



86 The Church of the Open Country 

The great men of the time before Lincoln did deeds 
of prowess with the gun and the ax. They wrestled, 
they ran, but they did not play in any organized 
form. 

Pioneer Sins and Vices. The pioneer period, as 
it was individualist, showed the vices of an unor- 
ganized society. Acts of men were condemned by 
the early churches which were impulsive rather 
than deliberate. Many were the adulteries, thefts, 
and breaches of contract of those days, but in the 
most of cases they expressed independence of spirit. 
The sins of later times expressed a cooperation in 
wrong-doing. The religious worker among pioneer 
or mountain people must deal with them in sym- 
pathy. He must recognize the splendid independ- 
ence of character of which they are capable and 
teach them the nobility of the solitary life of the 
mountain. 

Only Safe Method of Change. In pioneer 
churches, also, the moral problem is very largely 
one of adaptation. The largest section of pioneer 
life is in the Southern mountains and on the West- 
ern frontier. But the pioneer period is yielding 
to the invasion of modern industry. In all these 
places the Church must help the people to enter the 
new era. This can be done best through the young. 
But the fundamental method of teaching it must 
be economic. The great struggle of a people to 
whom the railroad has come and who are solicited 
to work in mills is to get a living. For instance, in 
Huntsville, Alabama, are some thousands of moun- 



Rural Morality and Recreation 87 

taineers who have been brought to the city to work 
in the cotton mills. They are country people, liv- 
ing in " company houses." Out of the loneliness of 
mountain cabins they come to be crowded into con- 
gested, slumlike villages. Observers testify that 
the general tendency of factory labor upon these 
mountain people is good on one condition; namely, 
that they have religious leadership in the transition 
from the mountain to the city. If they have settle- 
ment workers going among them to help those who 
fall, if there be a friendly visitor or district nurse 
at hand to care for the sick or for those who are 
injured in the mill, then the new industrial period 
will be a blessing. The mill itself, with its better 
wages and its steady employment, is one vast school 
for the mountaineer, but without the blessing of 
religious and voluntary Christian service among 
them, the mountain people will get no benefit. This 
is the testimony of mill owners, settlement workers, 
philanthropists, and Christian ministers. 

Twofold Christian Work. The service, therefore, 
which Christian people can render is both in main- 
taining the pioneer type of men and of community, 
and in helping these communities to enter into the 
organized life which comes upon them with rail- 
roads, factories, and organized farming. 

Household Moral Standard. The household 
period of farming has its moral system grouped 
around the household unit. As the individual was 
the unit in the farmer period with independence 
of character as the clue to all virtues, so here the 



88 The Church of the Open Country 

household is the unit. The virtues of the working 
household, earning its living from its own soil, are 
the virtues of this time. There was no play in the 
pioneer period, but the beginnings of recreative life 
came with the warmer and more social, neighborly 
intercourse of household farming. The austere 
ideas of this period, however, treated recreative 
enterprises with severity. The early churches for- 
bade their members " to go to frolics." The surest 
way to signify that play was moral was to declare 
it immoral and to forbid it. President Henry C. 
King says that many parents express their brief 
philosophy of childhood in one word, " Don't." In 
the same way the austerity of this time troubled 
itself but little with the discovery of possible good, 
and too easily condemned all spontaneous recreative 
enterprises by calling them evil and forbidding them. 
Narrow Outlook. The household farmer is so 
devoted to his own group and its experiences that 
he approves of what is within and disapproves of 
most things without. He looks upon all other 
groups of people with a certain reserve, almost an 
aversion. He favors the members of his own 
household and prefers them to all others. The 
curve of his approval and appreciation falls very 
rapidly at the outer boundaries of his home and 
his farm. He does not recognize obligations in 
extensive detail outside of his own farm. He 
thinks of his neighbor farmers as his competitors, 
not his comrades in a cooperative enterprise. But 
the household farmer has not matured his system 



Rural Morality and Recreation 89 

of tilling the land sufficiently to appreciate that 
his success is dependent on his neighbor's success. 
This competitive and divisive condition of farm- 
ing is the source of many moral conditions in the 
country which are evil. It is the source, too, of 
much of the waste of country life. 

Strange Moral Bias. The prevalence of this 
competitive state of mind in the country and its 
profound influences are amazing. One sees men 
who are pillars of the churches working for their 
own families and giving nothing for the interests 
of the community. It is a shocking moral experi- 
ence to observe deacons and other spiritual leaders 
of country communities using the public school sys- 
tem for private profit and thinking no ill of it. 
They have no sense of the community, because they 
have never cooperated in the essentials with their 
neighbors. Therefore, they see no wrong in using 
the public school as a source of income for a mem- 
ber of their family. They would not tamper with 
school funds, but they will solicit the appointment 
of a daughter as a teacher solely because she is a 
member of their family. There are many farmers 
in the country who could be trusted with your prop- 
erty or with your child. You would make no mis- 
take if you appointed such a man executor of your 
will, but beware of putting him as the trustee of a 
public fund which is for the interest of the com- 
munity. These men have a sense of family life, but 
as to public trust, they have it not. 

Religious Inconsistency. The evil to be cured 



90 The Church of the Open Country 

is the evil which expresses itself in packing the 
good apples at the top and the poor ones in the 
middle of the barrel. It is the evil of refusal to 
recognize social standards, on which alone cities 
can be built, by which alone the world market can be 
organized. In a church in New York State is a 
prominent and excellent citizen, approved by his 
neighbors. The milk from his dairy farm by 
which he gets his living was refused by the health 
officers of the city of Rochester, and he was in- 
formed of the reasons for the disapproval. His 
standards of social conduct were so low that in- 
stead of improving the sanitary quality of his milk, 
he turned his back on Rochester and, driving in the 
opposite direction, sent his milk to Buffalo, where 
he could sell it at a little more pains and at some- 
what less profit. This religious man, uninstructed 
in the social standards by which a countryman 
serves unseen customers in a great city, then boasted 
of his evading the sanitary restrictions of Rochester. 
Indifference to Results Out of Sight. A pastor 
found a boarding-place in the country for a mother 
with a very sick child. The farmer when he saw the 
pitiful condition of the little baby promptly offered 
his sympathetic help to the mother in restoring it 
to health. Believing, as other farmers did, that the 
milk produced by cattle fed on green corn is bad for 
little children, he offered to set aside one cow 
from his herd and feed that cow on grass alone, be- 
cause the herd at that time was feeding on green 
corn. The little child very promptly recovered 



Rural Morality and Recreation 91 

abundant health. Yet all the time this farmer was 
sending his milk produced by the cows fed on green 
corn to the city for sale, while knowing that it 
would be used by children and believing that chil- 
dren so nourished would grow sick and die. The 
child seen impressed his mind, but the children un- 
seen had no influence upon his conduct. The need 
in this case is of cultivation in social standards. 
Household farming produced no community stand- 
ards of action. 

Need of Frequent Happy Meetings. Sometimes 
the people of a given neighborhood have no ex- 
perience of a common interest which unites a whole 
community. Probably for most of them the moral 
standards of organized and scientific farming will 
never come. One cannot always hope to teach 
grown people the lessons which they did not learn 
as children. The business of the Church, there- 
fore, is to organize the young children, and train 
them in the reactions and instinctive responses of a 
new mode of life. This can be done by all forms 
of recreative and social life, especially if they are 
organized for a high purpose. Professor Carver 
has rightly insisted that recreative life in the coun- 
try does not need to be musical or dramatic or gym- 
nastic, or any other one prescribed thing, but the 
essential is that it result in frequent and happy 
social meetings. 

Trials of Transition. It must be remembered 
that the Church has not the whole task. Every 
agency of modern life is cooperating to undermine 



92 The Church of the Open Country 

the standards of the household era, or rather to 
enlarge them, through a period of speculation, to 
the standards of organized and scientific agricul- 
ture. The Christian worker who is earnest for the 
enlargement of the mind of country people must 
recognize through what bitter experiences the farm 
household has gone, when so many farmers have 
sold the land on which their ancestors were buried; 
how mighty the emotional change has been in the 
past twenty years when men have given up the 
homesteads for which their fathers and grand- 
fathers labored and even fought, and in which the 
whole round of their life has been passed. 

Reconstructive Opportunity. " A period of re- 
construction is a religious opportunity," says one 
of our great missionaries. This profound social 
experience of change makes possible the teaching 
of new moral standards in the country. The dis- 
solution of the household group leaves individuals 
separated, confused, often depressed by the new 
period, and unable to act by the old standards ; un- 
able to learn what are the new. I am confident that 
the business of the Church at this time is not only 
to preach new moral standards, but to organize the 
people on the principles of the new economy. In- 
deed, this process of organizing country people 
is going on. The cooperative spirit is abroad and 
is doing its work. The need is that the churches 
should have a part of this spirit, and give the sanc- 
tion of religious authority, persuasion, and interpre- 
tation to the new time. The minister should speak 




MAKING A COMMUNITY PARK 
SCHOOLS WERE CLOSED AND EVERYBODY TURNED OUT TO HELP 



Rural Morality and Recreation 93 

with a sure voice and the people in the country 
should enter heartily into every cooperative enter- 
prise that will build up the country community. 
This ought to be done confessedly and frankly in 
the name of Christ. The religious spirit must be 
poured into the new unions of country people. It 
will guicje them to better efficiency and it will 
lift them from the baser and more material ends 
to which they will naturally gravitate. 

Place for New Ideals. Christianity makes ideals, 
and country life at this time needs the ideals of a 
new era. The leaven of Christianity has power to 
idealize, to dramatize life, and the churches should 
train men in the part which they are to play in the 
period of organized and scientific farming. 

Farm Trafficking in the Middle West. Specula- 
tive agriculture characterizes the present day. We 
are in the midst of a period of exploiting farm land. 
Cash and money values seem to be the curse of 
country life. Eastern farmers are amazed at the 
selling and reselling and selling again of the farms 
in the Middle West. There is far more tenacity 
of ownership still in the East, where some farms 
are permanently abandoned, than in the Middle 
West, where every acre is eagerly sought; for this 
speculative selling and buying has had but little 
check there, and the community has greatly suffered. 

Moral Gains even of Farm Speculation. But the 
period of exploiting the farm has its own moral 
standards. Country life has not known the values 
of cash, and country people have been slow to learn 



94 The Church of the Open Country 

the obligations which are expressed in terms of 
money. Farmers who had agreed to sell at a cer- 
tain figure have too often broken their word when 
they thought a better price could be obtained by so 
doing. Few farming communities show the high 
principle in matters of money which characterizes 
the Wall Street broker and the banker, whose stand- 
ards in other things are by farmers much con- 
demned. The banker and the broker know the 
obligations of money. They live in the terms of 
cash, and they keep their word. The virtues of a 
speculative period are virtues which the farmer 
needs to learn. This period is not mere destruction 
to the community. It is described by Professor 
Ross as " the period of redistribution of land 
values." Professor Carver says, " The American 
farm lands are passing into the hands of those 
who will till them to the best advantage." There 
are rights and wrongs even in a speculative period. 
Virile Teaching on Giving. How shall the 
Church raise the standard of morality in a time of 
speculation? The great business of the Church in 
this time is to exalt the doctrine of consecration of 
money. Like other moral standards it comes more 
by experience than by precept. Sermons and teach- 
ings will affect it, but the doing of deeds by people 
themselves means more than sermons spoken to 
them or lessons drawn for them by word of mouth. 
The country Church should teach its people to give. 
The organization of the work of the Church on a 
basis of giving will have a profound and far-reach- 



Rural Morality and Recreation 95 

ing influence. " Pay to the Lord what you owe " 
is a gospel needed in the country community. This 
doctrine must be taught in a virile and not in a 
merely persuasive manner. The Church must be 
supported, not by the condescending benevolence 
of a few, but by the consecrated dues of the many. 

Recreations Worth their Cost. The Church 
among working people, who have little money, must 
solve the questions of paid entertainments. Recrea- 
tions should not be paid for out of the collection 
plate. People are willing to pay for them. Their 
value in assembling the whole community is very 
great. 

Three Principles. I suggest therefore three prin- 
ciples by which they be governed. First, enter- 
tainments should pay for themselves. All clubs or 
societies in a church should pay as they go. Sec- 
ond, they should not be used as a source of income 
for the church. Worship must not exploit recrea- 
tion. The minister must not get his salary from 
oyster suppers or private theatricals, for if these 
things are used for church support they will become 
baser and poorer in quality. Third, paid enter- 
tainments should be in another room than that used 
for worship, if it is possible. These three principles 
may be condensed into one : that worship and 
recreation are separate enterprises of the Church. 
Each must be managed in its own times, and for 
its own values. 

Frank, Definite Action. There can be no build- 
ing up of moral character in the country till minis- 



g6 The Church of the Open Country 

ters and church people are earnest and businesslike. 
There must be frank, definite, virile action. Its 
basis must be clear-cut and its administration reso- 
lute. The Church which has positive ideas as to 
the Lord's ownership and the sacredness of all 
money obligations will do much to build up the 
country community, and it will be found that this 
Church has built the moral character of its people. 

Church Social Leadership Desirable. The high- 
est moral values will not be attained unless this 
social opportunity be given by the Church. It is 
of the greatest ethical importance that religion be 
the center of the moral life. There is no other or- 
ganizing power so strong and no other has such 
immediate appeal. Whatever city people may do, 
country folk expect the Church to train the con- 
science. The mere gathering of people at a church 
tends to remind them of every moral principle and 
to awaken every ennobling association. The stand- 
ards of Christianity are the highest moral standards, 
so that it is all-important that the Church be the 
leader in the moral culture of the community. In 
our day it is most generally to be done by definite 
organizations for building up the social life of the 
country. 

Summary. To sum up this chapter, then, the 
problem of morality is intimately related in the 
country community with the play experience of the 
people. The one reflects the form of the other. 
Amusements in the country are often immoral. 
Recreation may be made in the highest degree a 



Rural Morality and Recreation 97 

moral power. The organized industries all react 
upon their workers in a craving for organized play. 
This play is the voluntary expression of those whose 
work is in little details involuntary. Therefore, 
play is highly moral. It is the expression of the 
spontaneous, voluntary, personal impulses. The 
pioneer period had the vices of an independent peo- 
ple. Those who would train solitary farming 
people must at once respect their independent char- 
acter: transform them so far as is possible by the 
infusion of social spirit; but all the time the soli- 
tary and independent character must be treated in 
its own terms. Household farming should pro- 
duce family virtues, yet the virtues of the household 
period of farming are disappearing before the era 
of speculative and scientific farming, to which these 
virtues are inadequate. The children of the house- 
hold farming era need to be trained in the organ- 
ized and cooperative virtues of more mature agri- 
culture. Country people need to be trained in the 
giving of money. The ethical standards of a finan- 
cial life need cultivation among country people, be- 
cause at the present time we are in the period of 
speculative farming, when values are expressed in 
money and obligations are those in which the Chris- 
tian banker is the ideal type. Last of all, the virtues 
of cooperation are the highest, and the vices of com- 
petition are the worst, which at the present time 
we must recognize. The great business of the re- 
ligious and moral leader in the country is to train 
men in cooperative life. 



COOPERATION AND FEDERATION 



The Country Life movement deals with what is probably the most 
important problem before the English-speaking peoples at this time. 
Now the predominance of the towns, which is depressing the country, 
is based partly on a fuller application of modern physical science, 
partly on superior business organization, partly on facilities for occu- 
pation and amusement; and if the balance is to be redressed, the 
country must be improved in all three ways. There must be better 
farming, better business, and better living. These three are equally 
necessary, but better business must come first. For farmers, the 
way to better living is cooperation, and what cooperation means is 
the chief thing the American farmer has to learn. — Horace Plunkett 

Very much has been said about the necessity of business cooperation 
among farmers, and the importance of the subject can hardly be 
overstated; and yet it should be understood that economic cooperation 
is only one of many means that may be put in operation to propel 
country life. The essential thing is that country life be organized: 
if the organization is cooperative, the results — at least theoretically — 
should be the best; but in one place, the most needed cooperation 
may be social, in another place educational, in another religious, in 
another political, in another sanitary, in another economic in respect 
\o buying and selling and making loans or providing insurance. When 
the chief deficiency in any region is economic, then it should be met 
by an organization that is primarily economic. — L. H. Bailey 

In the little town of Victor, Montana, Presbyterians, Baptists, and 
Methodists have not progressed quite far enough in Christian unity 
to feel that they can belong to one church, but they are far enough 
along to live and work as one church. So they have taken one of 
their local houses of worship for preaching services and the other 
for Sunday-school. They have Presbyterian preaching two Sundays 
in the month, and Baptist and Methodist preaching one Sunday each. 
But their Sabbath-school and their Christian Endeavor Society run 
on week after week as united bodies, without denominational dis- 
tinctions. A Sunday-school of 150 they find a great deal more spir- 
ited and a great deal more effective than would be three Sunday- 
schools of fifty each. And the same consideration in their opinion 
amply justifies the joint young people's work. This victory of Victor 
over denominational rivalries should be more than suggestive — it should 
be strongly incitative — to other over-churched villages. — The Continent 



IOO 



COOPERATION AND FEDERATION 

Occasional United Effort. Cooperation may be 
occasional among people who are indisposed to it, 
or it may be social among those who are accus- 
tomed, with reserve, to act together, or it may be 
fundamental and continuous among country people 
who depend upon it for their livelihood. Solitary 
farming was uncooperative. Only occasional acts 
in emergencies were cooperative. Pioneer and 
settler folk did not enlist in armies, except under 
terrifying emergencies. They did not gather for 
common work, except as the exigencies of pioneer 
life required them, for a barn-building or a house- 
raising. They had no settled or regulated or re- 
quired cooperation. Yet there was in this period 
at times a more fundamental cooperation, because 
it was an effort to secure necessities of life. The 
life of pioneer days is centrifugal. It goes off into 
the wilderness and retreats toward the center only 
when driven in. 

Unfederated Religious Stage. The religious life 
of solitary farmers was equally innocent of federa- 
tion. They believed with all their hearts in division. 
The people of this type in the country to-day believe 

IOI 



102 The Church of the Open Country 

that the virtuous state is that in which the few 
righteous are separate from the many. To them the 
activities of the church which represents the whole 
community are presumably worldly. Social unity 
means worldliness, but the separation of a small 
group gives them a consciousness of piety. 

Strong Stress on the Individual. This unco- 
operative religious life idealizes the individual. 
God is known to be a person, but they think that he 
is not served in a society. How different is this ideal 
from the modern growing conception of the com- 
munity devoted to God ! How unlike is the pioneer 
ideal of solitary living, imposed upon them by the 
wilderness and the prairie, to the present social con- 
ception of the service to God in the service to a 
community or to a society ! 

Extreme Individual Views. This doctrine of re- 
ligious individualism can be carried to terrifying 
and tragic ends. There have been lonely Elijahs in 
America who believed that they alone were left of 
all God's prophets. I am not concerned in this 
chapter to note the moral values of this independ- 
ence. These moral values are very great. But in 
the present time the independent and solitary con- 
ception of God is too often a source of weakness 
in the community and of unreligion in the Church. 

Cooperation for Social Ends. In the period of 
household farming cooperation in the getting of a 
livelihood was only occasional. Household farm- 
ing still prevails over most of the United States, 
unsettled and weakened by speculation as it is, 



Cooperation and Federation 103 

and cooperation among household farmers is purely 
social. It is not economic. They visit, they dine, 
they go to common places of meeting, they inter- 
marry. The social processes of the country are co- 
operative, but the weakness of purely social co- 
operation is shown in the inability of household 
farmers to resist the speculative process that is now 
undermining the social economy of the household 
farmer. 

Economic Cooperation also Essential. Only 
those farmers are able to resist the dissolving acid 
of speculation who cooperate economically. Those 
farmers are, speaking broadly, in three classes. The 
first class is illustrated in the Mormons in the West, 
who cooperate in getting their livelihood under the 
organizing power of their churches. Secondly, the 
Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who co- 
operate in the building of their communities, and 
in a larger measure in their economic life, than 
other farmers do, and third, the Pennsylvania Ger- 
mans, a name which is applied to a group of re- 
ligious bodies who cooperate in their social and their 
economic life. With them belong other Teutonic 
populations living in the open country. The suc- 
cess of these farmers in resisting the process of 
speculation, in holding their land, in keeping up 
their communities and maintaining their country 
churches, is due to the fact that they make com- 
mon interest of getting a living. They stand by 
one another in economic efforts. This thoroughness 
of cooperation is, according to Sir Horace Plunkett, 



104 The Church of the Open Country 

essential to the welfare of rural life. In his book, 1 
Sir Horace insists that merely religious or social 
organization is not sufficient in the country, but 
cooperation must be economic, if it is to maintain 
communities and build up a permanent population. 
The close dependence of religious institutions upon 
economic processes is shown by the survival of the 
churches among those farmers who cooperate in 
their business, and the weakening of the churches 
among those farmers who do not. The economic 
experience of the people is matched in their re- 
ligious experience. For every economic process one 
may expect to find a religious efTect. For this 
reason the farmers of the household type of farm- 
ing, who cooperate only in the genial and pleasant 
and kindly things of life, but who compete in the 
serious and stern task of getting a living, have done 
nothing to resist the process of speculation, and 
their churches have been undermined by the dis- 
solution of their communities. 

Example of Oberlin. The historic experience of 
John Frederic Oberlin in Waldersbach is an illus- 
tration of this thorough cooperation of the whole 
community. Oberlin came to these people when 
their community in the mountains of the Vosges 
was poor, distracted, and discouraged. His prede- 
cessors had preached and taught in the schools, but 
Oberlin saw that he must build up the community 
from the bottom. He began, therefore, by summon- 
ing his neighbors to the task of road building. 

1 The Rural Life Problem in the United States. 




JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 



1 



Cooperation and Federation 105 

Against their amazed protest he laid the stones 
with his own hands and demonstrated that as a 
student of engineering he could serve their common 
needs. He promoted better agriculture. He under- 
took the general economic welfare of the commu- 
nity as a whole. His life * is a classic in the litera- 
ture of the country Church. 

Requires Care of the Poor. One of the most 
essential forms of economic cooperation among: 
country people is the care of the poor in the coun- 
try community. It is a part of the cooperation in 
getting a living which tends to build the community 
and to steady the country Church. Where the poor 
have been neglected and the stupid have been ig- 
nored the community has given its energies forth 
in the lives of the brilliant and the rich and saintly 
people. There the country Church has been mis- 
directed, and the community has been dissolved^ 
because the poor have degenerated and the stupid 
have become more ignorant. People of common- 
place religious character have retrograded and 
have remained in the locality, but the brilliant and 
the rich and the saintly have very generally gone 
off, leaving the community bereft of leaders and 
sinking in its own degenerate leavings. 

Pennsylvania German Cooperation. The Penn- 
sylvania Germans have built many communities. 
They have not practised in their permanent com- 
munities the intensity and the violence of coopera- 
tive life which distinguished them in the cloister of 

1 A. F. Beard, The Story of John Frederic Oberlin. 



io6 The Church of the Open Country 

Ephrata. In this university about 1730 they initi- 
ated an experiment in cooperation and for nearly 
thirty years under the leadership of Conrad Beissel 
they blended all the interests of a group of people 
in one intense glorious effort at communism. This 
effort failed, and the community reverted from 
its intense unity to the ordinary free cooperation 
which prevails among the Mennonite, Dunker, 
Amish, and other kindred sects. But the history 
of Ephrata has remained the precious tradition 
both of their children and of the Pennsylvania 
people generally and of all readers of American 
history. Its central principle was religious. It il- 
lustrates this fact: that religious life idealizes the 
labor of poor people for a living; that country 
people and working people may find in the religious 
passion the power which will unite them for eco- 
nomic cooperation, and if that cooperation be not 
so intense or so passionate, the fervor and the en- 
thusiasm necessary will be supplied by religious 
experience. The Pennsylvania Germans who sup- 
ply the market around many Pennsylvania towns 
cooperate to-day quite effectively, though more 
freely, in their agriculture. 

Church Registers Measure of Cooperation. The 
measure of the cooperative spirit in any population 
is expressed in the churches. The life of the 
pioneers showed itself in their many churches. 
They believed in independent religious organiza- 
tions. We idealize federation. They built in com- 
petition. The churches of the household period 



Cooperation and Federation 107 

were divided, because the household farmer per- 
fects his own family group, but cherishes no com- 
munity ideal. His churches, therefore, represent 
the common religious interest of a group of house- 
holds. The household farmer does not desire to 
serve the community religiously. He insists that the 
first duty of the Sunday-school is to teach the chil- 
dren of the families of the church. He is willing 
that others should attend, but he does not solicit 
their presence in his church. The leading officer of 
such a church in central Illinois, when his minister 
proposed to evangelize the surrounding countryside, 
said, pointing to the church spire, " That bell can 
be heard for ten miles. If they want to come to our 
church, they know when the church is open.'' 

Competition Means Many Churches. With 
amazing precision the Church is faithful to the eco- 
nomic experience of the people. If the people are 
uncooperative in getting their livelihood, the 
churches are competitive, no matter how kindly the 
neighbors may be to one another. If their work 
life is divided, their churches are many. 

Speculation Disintegrates. The speculative period 
of farming tends to dissolve all existing units. 
Speculation is a valuing of all things in cash, and 
cash is a personal possession. The more money a 
man has, the more he is drawn apart from his 
relatives, from his neighbors, and from his friends. 
When a man becomes very rich he must always 
question whether he has any friends, and he is con- 
tinually annoyed because he has relatives. Wealth 



108 The Church of the Open Country 

capitalizes personality. Private property is the 
clothing of individualism. The result is that the 
period of exploitation has dissolved the rural house- 
hold, undermined the country Church, and caused 
the country community to disintegrate. Its effect 
upon rural society is revolutionary. 

Strength of Cooperative Elements. I have indi- 
cated above that this speculative process is retarded 
in those farming populations where economic co- 
operation prevails. The families of the Pennsyl- 
vania German hold together, and they are buying the 
farms which their neighbors abandon. There is no 
price on their own acres, and they make all sacri- 
fices to better themselves through the speculation 
in farming from which their neighbors are suffer- 
ing. Mormons, because of their economic coopera- 
tion, are powerful farming people. They extend 
themselves by their mass activity. In both these 
cases the churches in which the people worship are 
maintained and their religious life has continuous 
power, because they are able to resist the specula- 
tive processes which affect their neighbors. They 
do not find it necessary to federate their churches 
in the interest of survival, because they have an 
anchorage in the economic unity of their people. 
Their churches are all the stronger in the hold upon 
the individual, because they are the societies by 
which the business life of the people is compacted. 
To use a metaphor, the Pennsylvania German's 
church is his labor union. 

Means for Community Institutions. The federa- 



Cooperation and Federation 109 

tion of churches has a resource, during the specu- 
lative period of farming, in the cash which has come 
into the country. The farmer has been poor. The 
period immediately after the Civil War withered 
and impoverished everything connected with the 
farm. In that period no proposals could be made 
for the betterment of the community because all 
common interests were lacking in resources. Such 
prosperity as farmers enjoyed enabled them sepa- 
rately to survive, but now the time has come when 
the farmer through speculation and exploitation has 
sufficient means for building community institu- 
tions. 

A Few Can Benefit Many. This principle works 
both ways. Not only are there people in the com- 
munity who have money, but speculation has im- 
poverished very many. It follows that community 
building means the creation of institutions in which 
the money of the few shall minister to the need 
of the many. In this I have no reference to pau- 
perism. I am thinking only of the needs of work- 
ing and substantial people who have no capital and 
no land. 

Union Through Large Gifts. The country com- 
munity may be united through the gifts of the 
prosperous. In many New England towns the old 
church is endowed. A few people have prospered 
and through their benefactions the many are united 
in worship or in service. In the old church at Unity, 
Pennsylvania, the gifts of well-to-do people have 
been a primary factor in uniting the whole commun- 



no The Church of the Open Country 

ity. The brilliant minister and the doctrine of unity 
he teaches have made use of these gifts, but the 
prosperity of the few has made the community pos- 
sible for the many. An essential factor in federat- 
ing the churches will be the large gifts of those 
who believe in the community. 

May Solve Problem of Church Consolidation. 
These gifts are only possible in a time of specula- 
tive profits, so that the federation of churches now 
needed in the country community can be greatly 
helped by the gifts of those who have exploited the 
resources of the country. A country church in 
New York State, in which many denominations were 
represented, was made possible by the munificence 
of one man, whose money was made by borrowing 
from his farmer neighbors at four per cent, and 
loaning to the railroads at ten per cent. He insisted 
that the church sustained by his money be unde- 
nominational. Such a church alone could have sur- 
vived in that community. The outcome illustrated 
the value of a large financial gift in settling the 
intricate problems of church federation. 

A Step Toward Church Federation. The federa- 
tion of churches will in most places await the growth 
of the cooperative spirit among the farmers. It is 
impossible for people who are divided in their 
economic life to be united in their religious life. 
The spirit of competition in business will breed a 
competitive religious spirit. Those who are daily 
contending will not on the day of worship unite. 
It is a hopeful sign of Church federation that the 




O 



Cooperation and Federation in 

spirit of cooperation is extending among country 
people. As soon as farmers have recognized that 
they can work together, they will themselves apply 
the same principle to their churches. 

Unifying Effect of the Grange. This federating 
influence is exerted by the Grange. This order, 
which is nominally secret, but really an open frater- 
nal order of country people, is so unlike a lodge that 
it is generally not found in those communities in 
which lodges are numerous. The Grange unites 
men instead of dividing them. Like other orders 
it has its weaknesses and tends to fall into disrepair, 
but at its best the Grange has a unifying power in 
the country community. Especially in the commu- 
nity in which religious people cannot come to agree- 
ment in religious matters the Grange infuses a 
spirit of union among them, through the discus- 
sion of everyday interests and the fine social pleas- 
ures which it furnishes. 

Not Thoroughgoing Enough. The great weak- 
ness of the Grange is its lack of economic coopera- 
tion. No farmers' organization which has not the 
courage and thoroughness to get under the farmer's 
income and bring about cooperation in the securing 
of a livelihood is adequate to the present situation. 
The Grange has attempted cooperation in buying. 
It has in certain places united the farmers in co- 
operative creameries and other such enterprises, 
but these have generally been abandoned and the 
function of the Grange has been limited to that of 
social cooperation. This is the great weakness of 



H2 The Church of the Open Country 

an order otherwise so extensive and so influential. 
The faults of the Grange are those that arise from 
this superficial attack upon the problems of rural 
life. It is in danger always of becoming a mere 
social and pleasure-providing organization and of 
omitting more serious aims. 

Good Educative Influence. Nevertheless the gen- 
eral influence of the Grange is to accustom country 
people to working together. It enables them to 
meet, to discuss given interests, and to get used to 
the experiences of cooperative effort. They learn 
to obey and to command, to serve in appointed and 
delegated places, and to depend upon one another, 
to keep appointments, and to meet problems as they 
arise which affect the community, to devote them- 
selves to interests larger than their own homes or 
their own properties. 

Successful Examples a Help. There is great hope 
also for the union of farmers in their economic and 
their religious life in the cooperative experiences of 
other sections of the country. Farmers in Dela- 
ware and Maryland who have restored the old de- 
pleted lands on the Eastern Shore by small fruit 
culture are cooperating both in buying and selling 
through their produce exchanges. The experience 
of these farmers has uncovered certain principles 
heretofore unknown. Contrary to all expectation 
they have found it profitable to raise throughout 
a district the same crop, finding that a better market 
is secured for a carload of uniform berries than 
for a carload made up of different varieties 



Cooperation and Federation 113 

and competing consignments of fruit. Such co- 
operation when once established has power to con- 
tinue. It is a restraint in times of prosperity and 
it is a resource in times of depression. Above all, 
it accustoms country people to cooperate through 
their constant experience of working together, of 
sacrificing for one another, and of securing larger 
gains through these experiences. When one thinks 
that until these modern experiences of cooperation 
there have been in America no foci of cooperative 
life among country people, one is not surprised 
at the divided condition of churches and the com- 
petitive religious life of the country. 

Pacific Coast Fruit Growers. The fruit growers 
of the Pacific Coast have been obliged to cooperate 
in order to sell their product. Shipping as they do 
across a whole continent, they are dependent upon 
one another for mass action. They must organize 
for a task so great as marketing their product. 
Individual farmers could not market California 
fruit in New York as the union of fruit growers can 
do. The results have been wonderful in the suc- 
cess attained in marketing the fruit and in the ex- 
cellent prices secured by these Western farmers. 
The key to this success is the abolition of com- 
petitive cheating and trickery. The apples, for in- 
stance, in the Hood Valley, Oregon, are packed by 
a committee. No individual farmer manages the 
preparation of his own apples for market. The com- 
mittee is cold and impartial, and cares only for the 
proper grading of the fruit and the securing of a 



H4 The Church of the Open Country 

buyer through reliable and fair packing. The 
product is so uniform and the quality of the fruit 
can be relied on so generally that a higher price is 
paid for a box of apples from the Pacific Coast in 
the New York market than is paid for a barrel of 
apples from New York State itself. 

A More Complete Example. The experience of 
economic federation in the United States has been 
so rare among country people that it has as many 
critics as it has advocates. The places are too few, 
the federations of farmers too remote from one 
another for their influence to be very great. The 
experience of Denmark stands forth in our time as 
the great example of the federation of country 
people under religious stimulus, in the interest of 
the whole people. I am indebted for these facts, 
which have not been adequately published in Eng- 
lish, to Professor Fred Rasmussen, of the New 
Hampshire State College of Agriculture. 

A Transformed Denmark. Denmark is a coun- 
try twice the size of Massachusetts, having two and 
a half million people. Its leading industry is dairy- 
ing. By 1864 the soil was depleted of fertility 
through the selling of grain from the land. The 
country had suffered defeat in war, lost the prov- 
inces of Schleswig-Holstein, and was under a heavy 
indemnity. To-day Denmark is the most produc- 
tive of European countries and has the highest per 
capita wealth in Europe. " In Denmark," says 
Professor Rasmussen, " there are only a few who 
have too much, and still fewer who have too little. " 



Cooperation and Federation 115 

The secret of this national prosperity is education, 
cooperation, and a strong national spirit pervading 
the whole population. 

Value of Homogeneous Stock. The people are 
naturally organized by the fact that they are all of 
one national stock. The example of Denmark is 
significant in America, because in America the peo- 
ple on the farms are mostly American. The for- 
eign population is coming into the cities but the 
country population is American-born with con- 
spicuous and well-known exceptions. Indeed, the 
foreigners who are tilling the soil are more inclined 
to cooperation than the Americans themselves. But 
Denmark having a homogeneous, native-born, coun- 
try population of a strong independent type, has 
been able, because of their consciousness of kind, to 
organize cooperation among country people. What 
I am to describe concerns the rural, and not the 
urban, populations of Denmark. 
, Range of Organization. Natural organization, 
steadily growing, has developed into a Central Co- 
operative Committee of Denmark. Under this na- 
tional organization there are cooperative societies 
for production, as for instance cattle breeding asso- 
ciations. There are cooperative societies for manu- 
facture of country products into commodities, as 
the manufacture of pork into bacon and of milk 
into butter and cheese. These processes in Denmark 
are in the hands of the farmers themselves. There 
are cooperative societies for the protection of 
health, of saving, and of credit, and there are so- 



n6 The Church of the Open Country 

cieties which cooperate in the active brotherhood 
of man. 

Altruistic Feature. Denmark has live stock gath- 
erings, societies for protecting poor men, who have 
but one horse or one cow, against loss. Some well- 
to-do farmers belong to these societies in order to 
help the community. Insurance is secured by co- 
operation. These small cooperative bodies have 
members who never draw their benefits, but belong 
to the society in order to help the community. 
There are small banks in Denmark which have only 
one man on salary. The president of the bank re- 
ceives $150 per year, while directors serve in turn 
without pay. 

Sanitariums Secured. This spirit in Denmark is 
far from being commercial; it is at once religious, 
humane, and patriotic. The recent discovery that 
tuberculosis can be cured in its early stages occa- 
sioned a great movement in Denmark to provide 
sanitariums for the cure of consumption. A general 
organization under the leadership of ministers and 
philanthropists secured contributions for this pur- 
pose from all parts of the kingdom, and so general 
was the response, so small the gifts, that some co- 
operative Bacon Associations contributed as little 
as eighty-one cents. A Creamery Association was 
solicited to contribute five cents per year for twenty 
years, for each cow, which was equivalent to one 
pint of milk per cow per year. The movement for 
the cure of consumptives was on this basis success- 
ful, and adequate sanitariums were provided out of 



Cooperation and Federation 117 

these small gifts, universally contributed; but the 
cooperative organization of Denmark was essential 
to this result. 

Idea of Collective Success. In Denmark tag 
days are general, celluloid flowers being used in- 
stead of unsightly labels. Cooperation is based on a 
sense of the common good and the distribution of 
the strain according to the amount of business done 
in the community, and on a spirit of helpfulness as 
opposed to selfishness. The Danes have a sense 
that success is not individual, but that it is the com- 
mon prosperity of all the members of the com- 
munity. 

Sources Defined. Professor Rasmussen says that 
the sources of this national cooperation in Den- 
mark are, first, the natural growth of a people who 
are akin to one another. The second cause is the 
educational system, which all observers of Den- 
mark say is stimulated by religious motives. The 
third working cause in Denmark is the national 
songs of the country. These are heard outside the 
city. They are rural songs of the woods, of the 
brooks, of the birds, and of the fields. And, 
fourthly, the students in the schools of Denmark 
are the apostles of the nationalist movement. They 
are the teachers of cooperation and they work in 
this cause without pay. 

Inclusive and Intense Character. Teachers in 
Denmark are cared for. The public quickly re- 
sponds to their needs. There is a legal department 
in these cooperative systems which serves those who 



1 1 8 The Church of the Open Country 

need, free of charge. Information and instruc- 
tion are constantly being imparted to the people, 
and the result is a passionate sense of common 
adversity and common effort. 

Lines of Encouragement. I am frequently asked 
whether the country Church in America can ever 
succeed, whether the people will ever return to the 
country in sufficient numbers to make it a power- 
ful institution, competent to meet the needs of 
American country life. The answer is found in 
Denmark and in Ireland. For these two countries 
are meeting under the guidance of consecrated men 
the problems of their people. Ireland is getting 
rid of her beggars, Denmark has abolished pauper- 
ism and closed her poorhouses, and is building 
churches. The answer to this- question is found 
in populations of the United States, who even now, 
in scientific application of country life in the fed- 
eration of their institutions and cooperation in 
securing a livelihood, are maintaining themselves 
against all adverse change. 

Worth of Religious Idealism. In all these cases 
of successful country life, the influence of religion 
and of a passionate idealism is evident. The Church 
is the farmer's source of idealism. Country people 
have not many institutions, nor will they ever have; 
therefore the place of the Church is a great one and 
the spirit of the Church should be cooperative : the 
organizations of the Church should be federated. 
There must be in such a cooperative life of the 
farmers the beginning of religious cooperation. 



Cooperation and Federation 119 

The opportunity for preaching a common gospel 
among the farmers thus united is very great, for 
the economic experience enters largely into religious 
thought. 

Call for Religious Sacrifice. But it must not be 
inferred that without religious sacrifice these re- 
sults in federation can be easily reaped. Religious 
people who believe in federation must be prepared 
to make sacrifices for it. It is a doctrine with 
stern implications, and when all its meaning is 
known there will be many not ready to strip them- 
selves of that which they value or to consecrate 
their preferences to the common gain of the 
Kingdom. 

Quaker Hill Community Church. The writer was 
a minister at Quaker Hill, New York. The com- 
munity was made up of many groups of members 
and adherents of different denominations. When 
a church was to be formed he asked of his own de- 
nomination to be ordained with the understanding 
that the church thus formed would not be of his de- 
nomination nor of any other. After much debate 
this request was granted and he was ordained for 
the formation of a church from which his own 
denominational name was to be excluded. At its 
organization the five near-by congregations, all of 
them, except one, located in other communities, 
were asked to send minister and delegate to ap- 
prove the independent church to be formed on 
Quaker Hill. One of these was the Quaker Meet- 
ing, in whose territory the new church was about 



120 The Church of the Open Country 

to be formed. This Quaker Meeting sent as its 
representative an aged elder, Richard Osborn, 
whose saintly life and stern nobility of character 
were the mainstay of the declining Meeting, in which 
his fathers had for almost two generations wor- 
shiped. 

Personal Sacrifice Shown. The Baptist minister 
invited to this organization of an independent 
church had by his preaching converted many of 
the members of the proposed church. He came to 
the meeting, with explicit protest and with great 
sacrifice of his own feelings, and impelled by a 
sense of duty to the community, in which he had 
preached the gospel with power and tenderness. He 
came because he loved the members of the church 
and could not refuse. He was appointed to give 
the right hand of fellowship to the new church, 
and did so with grace and fervor. The old Quaker 
elder near the close of the meeting, when all " sat 
in silence," arose and in words of inexpressible 
dignity and sweetness welcomed the new church 
into the community, which had been served by the 
Quakers alone for two centuries. Richard Osborn 
knew when he so spoke that at his death the Meet- 
ing which he loved would be " laid down." He 
was passing on the mantle of the old Quaker preach- 
ers to the officers of the new church. Into this 
church were received adherents of eleven denomina- 
tions. 

Compromise of Principles not Required. This 
story is told in order to illustrate the sacrifices 



Cooperation and Federation 121 

which Christian people must make if they are to 
have federation; whatever is demanded for the 
sake of a united community must be done, so long 
as it involves no sacrifice of the spiritual welfare 
of people now living in that community. If you 
believe in federation, you must believe in the people 
whose hearts God has touched more than you be- 
lieve in the peculiar doctrines which have pleased 
and convinced yourself. The common and universal 
beliefs of Christian people are enough for any man 
who would be united in a noble Christianity. 
Whatever sacrifice is demanded of a Christian in a 
community must be made that the whole community 
may be one. This can be done without essential 
compromise of principles. If the spirit be Christian 
and if the devotion of the man be a uniting experi- 
ence, he can let his preferences be known without 
offense. The example of his self-sacrifice in lay- 
ing them aside for the sake of the community will 
be the more impressive. 

Federation a Present Ideal. On the whole very 
little is being done throughout the United States 
in the federation of churches. It is an ideal of 
men rather than a practise. Probably in the fu- 
ture it will be seen that our discussion of federation 
to-day was preliminary to a great religious move- 
ment, the end of which we cannot now see. Nearly 
everybody professes to believe in it, with sincerity, 
but the difficulties are so many and the path of action 
is so obscure that results are not obtained. 

Definite Progress in Maine. In the State of 



122 The Church of the Open Country 

Maine, where the Protestant churches have a homo- 
geneous population and the whole State has a cer- 
tain unity, federation of churches has had a defi- 
nite success, and, within limits, a power and an 
efficiency little known elsewhere. Leadership is a 
large factor in this success, for the State has a 
few recognized leaders whose voice is heard by all 
men. Conspicuous among these is President Wil- 
liam DeWitt Hyde, of Bowdoin College. The 
proposal of federation came from a Methodist 
minister and all denominations of Protestants are 
united. So well established has the work of this 
federation become that communities which find 
themselves in need of uniting their churches are 
able to request the kindly offices of the federation 
and to promise obedience to its mandates. On the 
proper occasion the officers of the federation come 
to the community, study the situation, and deter- 
mine upon an arrangement of the churches. Some- 
times an individual church must go out of exist- 
ence, and the federation decides which one shall be 
abandoned. The rural population of Maine is in 
many communities less than in former years and 
fewer churches are needed. Moreover, the people 
are more united in spirit than they were, so that 
the federation corresponds to the changes in popu- 
lation and in social feeling. General obedience to 
the decision of the federation and respect for its 
high purposes have resulted, in the course of its 
history. 

Outlook of New England Federation. The New 



Cooperation and Federation 123 

England Federation of Churches under the leader- 
ship of the Rev. E. Tallmadge Root, Secretary, is 
doing valuable service in bringing the churches of 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island to a sense of their 
common duty to the community. It is holding con- 
stantly before the churches the ideal of united serv- 
ice to the whole people. 

Federal Council of Churches. The Federal Coun- 
cil of the Churches of Christ in America is a 
union of leading Protestant denominations in the 
interest of American religious life. It is impor- 
tant that there be such a center, as a clearing- 
house of information, as headquarters for reference 
in the inquiries that bear upon the mutual relations 
of the churches, for the Federal Council can act 
as a mediary between denominations when they in- 
cline toward union. It does also great service in 
organizing local federations of States and of 
counties. 

Federation by Counties. In certain counties of 
Pennsylvania the unit for federated action has been 
found to be not the community in which are a num- 
ber of separate churches, but the county. The 
reason given is that the county is more neutral. It 
is neither a conference, nor an association, nor a 
diocese, nor a presbytery, but it is a civil division, 
corresponding in extent to any one of these dis- 
tricts. The relation of church federation to public 
reform, to public sanitation, and to the humane 
interests of the churches, suggests that the county 
be the unit in federating the churches. This move- 



124 The Church of the Open Country 

ment in Pennsylvania has gone far enough to show 
that it is on right lines. The experience of the 
ministers in working together brings forth results, 
but slowly. Sentiment is growing, and the basis of 
procedure seems to be a correct one. 

An Ideal Gradually to be Realized. Above all, 
it must be borne in mind that federation is an ideal. 
It grows out of the situation of modern life. It 
must be cherished with reserve and at the same 
time with emphasis. It has great promise for the 
future, though very often it seems impracticable in 
the present. Because the community cannot work 
in the federation there is no reason why the minis- 
ter and leading Christian people shall not advocate 
it. In time the change will come. It is well that 
it should not come too soon. Those who have 
known how great is the cost of uniting denomina- 
tions are in no hurry to precipitate the difficulties 
and the bitter costs of such a movement. What 
we need above all is the experience of working 
together. Christian people must work and pray, 
their ministers must preach, and the teaching of 
their leaders must be to the end that all Christians 
may be one. This is the path in which we are 
going. It is written large upon the future and it 
is bursting in hope and aspiration from the hearts 
of the best people in the churches. When the time 
comes it will appear as the kingdom of God does, 
without observation. But in that coming there are to 
be great sacrifices and profound changes in the life, 
in the thought, and the feeling of Christian people. 



POVERTY AND PROSPERITY 



Next to war, pestilence, and famine, the worst thing that can hap- 
pen to a rural community is absentee landlordism. In the first place, 
the rent is all collected and sent out of the neighborhood to be spent 
somewhere else; but that is the least of the evils. In the second 
place, there is no one in the neighborhood who has any permanent 
interest in it except as a source of income. The tenants do not feel 
like spending any time or money in beautification, or in improving 
the moral or social surroundings. Their one interest is to get as 
large an income from the land as they can in the immediate present. 
Because they do not live there, the landlords care nothing for the 
community, except as a source of rent, and they will not spend any- 
thing in local improvements unless they see that it will increase 
rent. Therefore such a community looks bad, and possesses the legal 
minimum in the way of schools, churches, and other agencies for 
social improvement. In the third place, and worst of all, the land- 
lords and tenants live so far apart and see one another so infre- 
quently as to furnish very little opportunity for mutual acquaintance 
and understanding. Therefore class antagonism arises, and bitterness 
of feeling shows itself in a variety of ways. Where the whole neigh- 
borhood is made up of a tenant class which feels hostile toward the 
absent-landlord class, evasions of all kinds are resorted to in order 
to beat the hated landlords. On the other hand, the landlords are 
goaded to retaliation, and the rack-rent system prevails. Sometimes 
the community feeling among tenants becomes so strong as to develop 
a kind of artificial " tenant right," which is in opposition to the laws 
of the land, and the laws of the land are then made more severe in 
order to control the " tenant right." — Thomas Nixon Carver 



126 



VI 

POVERTY AND PROSPERITY 

Increasing Proportion of Poor. The increase in 
the number of industrious poor weighs heavily 
upon the minds of Christian people. Not only is 
the number increased of those who are poor, but 
the proportion in the population appears to be 
greater than it was. This increase came to atten- 
tion at the very time when the free lands in the 
United States were exhausted. For while there 
are still some homesteads to be given away or sold, 
their influence upon the life of the country is not 
what it was. We are at the end of the period of 
the influence of free land upon our racial stock. 
It is striking now to discover that millions of people 
in America are without land and without productive 
tools. 

Term Defined. To be poor, in the meaning of 
this chapter, is to be landless and without pro- 
ductive tools. We are not concerned here with 
the tramp or the outcast, important as their cases 
are, but with society itself and with the community, 
in which is discovered a large essential factor con- 
sisting of persons who do not own productive land 
or tools. These I call poor, because with no land 
and no capital they are unable to resist the strain 

127 



128 The Church of the Open Country 

of want and it is easy for them to be plunged into 
pauperism. Their life is one of struggle. They 
are breadwinners. Very many of them are de- 
pendent upon wages. In the country they are tenant 
farmers or " renters," who are striving generally to 
possess land. In the cities they are clerks and 
working men and women who work for hire, hav- 
ing no ownership in productive industry. 

Tenant Farmers in Productive States. It is 
amazing that fifty per cent, of the people in the 
open country, in the wealthiest farming States, are 
without land and do not own the tools by which 
the land is tilled. They are tenant farmers. The 
proportion of these tenants is shown by the last 
census 1 to have greatly increased in the States 
in which the soil is richest. Moreover, in these 
States the proportion of tenants is greater in those 
counties where the soil is most productive, and 
smaller in the counties where the soil is poorer. 

Diminished Number in New England. In the 
New England States, whose soil has been depleted, 
the proportion of tenant farmers has diminished in 
the past ten years. Now the religious approach 
to a renter is different from the approach to an 
owner of land. He looks upon life in a wholly 
different way, and religion is so intimate to the 
experiences of men that it takes a different form 
in the man who is poor, that is, economically de- 
pendent. He does not think as the landowner does, 
nor feel as he feels. 

1 Census of 1910. 



Poverty and Prosperity 129 

Southern Landholders and Tenants. Principal 
Webb, the famous master of the fitting school at 
Bellebuckle, Tennessee, described this condition to 
me in some such terms as this : " The old-style 
Southern farmer was a landholder. He had books 
and read them. He sent his son to college, and he 
supported the Church. But the modern farmer in 
the Southern States is close. He holds to every dol- 
lar with jealous care. He buys no books. His chil- 
dren do not seek higher education. He is eager to 
own land and to buy more land." The tenant 
farmer has become the type of countryman in many 
of these Southern States. In Georgia, Mississippi, 
Alabama, and Louisiana the proportion of tenant 
farmers is between fifty and sixty per cent. In 
Tennessee the renters, as they are called in the 
South, are one half of the country population. 

Determining Factor in Problem. It is not my 
present concern to picture the condition of eco- 
nomic dependence, except as it is found in the open 
country, but to show that it is the cause which is 
changing the religious and political and educational 
complexion of the cities as well. The poor are 
multiplying about the churches, and with their large 
proportions they have become the determining fac- 
tor in public and social work throughout the country. 

Duty Required at Present. These increases in 
the proportion of those who are dependent on others 
for land and for tools is most marked in the 
wealthiest parts of the country. In the States which 
are stored with the greatest potential wealth, as 



130 The Church of the Open Country 

New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Colorado, 
the proportions of the poor are the greatest. This 
is the most discouraging and burdensome fact 
of all. I intend to offer no solution of it. It is 
for Christian people to serve, while this condition 
prevails, as Christ would serve such a people ac- 
cording to their needs. 

Apparently Permanent Condition. So far as we 
can now see, these conditions are permanent. Their 
causes are established. Men differ as to the remedy. 
Until they can agree and we may unite in a states- 
manship which will distribute the wealth of the 
country among the people, it is the duty of Chris- 
tians to think and serve and work for the poor. 
The forces which perpetuate this condition are es- 
sential to our life. We know no better way of life 
than the American way. Many of those who are 
without land and without tools become well-to-do, 
and some have become rich; but nevertheless the 
numbers of the poor are as great, and the propor- 
tions of the poor are increasing. So long as 
America is a prosperous country it will be filled 
in the cities and out in the open country with in- 
coming streams of immigration from poorer lands. 
As long as our richest lands can be used to remedy 
this condition, they will be exploited by increasing 
proportions of breadwinners, of whom the most 
will fill the ranks of the working poor. 

Religious Abolition of Poverty. Jesus said, 
" Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of 
God." What did he mean? It does not seem so to 



Poverty and Prosperity 131 

us. His meaning is not a part of our philosophy of 
life. It is not an American way of looking at 
things. Was he right, and if so, was he right only 
for Syria and for Palestine? Is poverty in 
America a religious condition? I want in this 
chapter to show that in the country community 
poverty can be under the control of the community 
and pauperism can be abolished. The process of 
lifting any population out of poverty is for them a 
religious experience. I do not speak of the indi- 
vidual. For a man to get rich often means for 
him to lose his religion; but for a whole people to 
be lifted out of poverty by a gain that is distributed 
through the number, is usually in history an ex- 
perience attended with religious gains. For a com- 
munity or a commonwealth to keep all of its mem- 
bers out of poverty and to care for its poor, is a 
religious experience. Indeed the most tenacious 
and valuable religious experience we have had in 
the country is among those people who have cared 
for their poor, have fought the battle against pau- 
perism in the interest of their weaker members, and 
have built up a way of life for the people as a 
whole in which the blighting and destroying effects 
of poverty shall not be felt. 

Protestant Developments from Poverty. As a 
matter of history, all the Protestant denominations, 
except two, have grown out of the condition 
of poverty. The various branches of the Presby- 
terian, Reformed, Methodist, and Baptist churches 
in the United States, as also the Quakers and the 



132 The Church of the Open Country 

various Mennonite churches, such as the Dunkers 
and the Amish, have all come from populations 
which were poor together, and their religious life 
has been enjoyed along with the betterment of their 
condition. They have gotten a better . livelihood 
as they matured and elaborated their religious sys- 
tems. The Wesleys preached to people in England 
who were so poor that the Church of England 
would not have them, but John Wesley while he 
lived commented on the economic improvement of 
his people, and once he humorously said, " I cannot 
keep my Methodists poor." 

Marginal People Determine Type of Community 
Life. Moreover the religious character of poor 
people who are saved from pauperism is shown in 
this that the people without lands and without tools 
are the marginal people of the community, and 
upon them the standards of moral and religious 
feeling in the community rest. Their way of liv- 
ing fixes the standard for the community. It is 
not to be expected that higher standards will prevail 
throughout the community than they can attain to. 
This is the reason why in New York City the prob- 
lems of the tenement-house are the problems of 
the whole city. Not everybody lives in a tenement 
in New York, but people who live in private houses 
cannot be sure that their children will be more 
healthy, or more moral, or more spiritual than the 
people who live in the tenement-house may be: the 
moral standards of the tenement-house prevail 
throughout the whole city. This is the reason why 



Poverty and Prosperity 133 

the mill-worker is so important in the community 
life of Pittsburgh. The well-to-do people of Pitts- 
burgh are many and excellent, but the standards of 
moral feeling and of religious experience which 
prevail among the mill-workers influence the people 
of the whole city. 

Working People Fix the Outlook. In the country 
community the tenant farmer determines the stand- 
ards of conduct for the community. Of course a 
few will always be better than he, but I am speaking 
in social terms, and social conditions are not made 
up of the few. The average child in the country 
community is more under the influence of the tenant 
farmer and the conditions of the tenant farmer's 
house, than he is of his own household, no matter 
how well born he be. The essential problems of 
the working people of any community must be 
regarded as vital problems of the whole com- 
munity. 

Relation to Faith. If this is true, then poverty 
is a religious condition, and they who have been 
poor, who have lived for years without knowledge 
of the future, who have no store of goods to live 
upon, know that faith in God is the faith of the 
Twenty-third Psalm, and they know that depend- 
ence upon God for daily supply is the beginning of 
religious experience. The anxieties of the family 
as to the future and as to the clothing and edu- 
cation of their children, as to those things neces- 
sary for self-respect, are the sources of religious 
experience and of the belief in God. This is why 



134 The Church of the Open Country- 
Jesus said, " Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye 
shall be filled." 

Making Ideals Effective. "If there is a new 
birth in the Church," says Dr. Edward T. Devine, 
head of the Charity Organization Society of New 
York City, " it will deal with poverty, not alone 
through deacons' and orphan alms, though these 
have their place, but by developing throughout the 
membership of the Church the ideal of a Christian 
community in which chronic poverty, like profes- 
sional crime, will have disappeared." * On another 
page of the same book he says, " Poverty can 
be abolished and permanent progress cannot be 
made until it is." 

Challenge to the Churches. What a challenge to 
the churches is this from the same writer, whose 
splendid faith in the power of religion is unshaken 
in the midst of the misery of a great city ! " Pre- 
ventable disease, probably not less than one half of 
all the disease which we now have, and prevent- 
able accidents, probably two thirds of those which 
we now have, will certainly disappear, when as the 
result of the spiritual awakening in the churches, 
there is a private and a public conscience which will 
deal with their causes." 

Quaker Ability to Fight Poverty. The difference 
between the country and the city is most marked 
in the greater ability of the country community, 
as shown in American history, to deal with pov- 
erty. The country life movement will contribute 

1 Social Forces, 90, 206, 207. 



Poverty and Prosperity 135 

a priceless gift to the future if it leads men to imi- 
tate successfully these country communities which 
have saved their people from pauperism; for this 
the cities have not done. The Quaker settlements 
in the country have known how to fight the battle 
with pauperism. For a century and a half certain 
Quaker communities have maintained themselves in 
the country and none among them has suffered from 
poverty. This has not been due to their being uni- 
formly rich, for the Quakers are subtly aristo- 
cratic, and marked differences prevail among them. 
But the whole community has been trained under 
the influence of the Meeting to care for their mem- 
bers who possess but one horse and one cow. 
Whenever at Quaker Hill a working man has lost his 
horse or cow or suffered through fire the loss of his 
house or barn, the whole community has responded 
and restored to him that which was lost. Thus for 
almost two centuries the whole population has been 
kept from pauperism. 

Instance at Quaker Hill. This applies to the 
members of the community, whether Quakers or 
not. On this hilltop the population of Quakers is 
now small. About ten years ago an outsider secured 
the contract for delivering mail on Quaker Hill. 
He had not yet begun to take the profits of his 
contract when one of his horses died. These 
horses were his productive tools. Within a very 
short time the whole community by apparently 
spontaneous action had subscribed the money to buy 
him a horse. The influence of this act in weld- 



136 The Church of the Open Country 

ing the community into one was almost incredible. 
Its effect upon the recipient himself need not be 
described. 

Pennsylvania German Communal Success. " The 
Pennsylvania Germans " are a group of populations 
religiously organized, who had their sources among 
the poor of Europe, at the time of the Reforma- 
tion. The leading influence among them is the 
Mennonite way of life from which the Quakers' 
mode of life is derived. They have the same meth- 
ods of extinguishing pauperism. These methods 
have now become instinctive and they apply to all 
residents in the community, whether members of 
the Meeting or not. The religious genius of the 
Mennonites and the Quakers has recognized that 
" the injury of one is the concern of all." 

Contrast with New England. Contrast this deal- 
ing with poverty to methods which have prevailed 
in New England, where with all the sense of the 
community, as expressed in the Town Meeting, the 
poor were neglected. The genius of New England 
has been to emphasize the success of leading citi- 
zens. All the community's oil was put in the lamp 
of the boy who went to college. The man who be- 
came rich, the deacon in the church, or any other 
person whose success in business, in scholarship, or 
in piety was eminent satisfied the mind of the New 
Englander, and the rest of the people were not re- 
garded. The result has been that many of the New 
England stock have been neglected, the community 
has lost very often its ablest members and has been 



Poverty and Prosperity 137 

proud of their departure into far-off eminence. But 
the community has suffered through the weakness 
of its poorer members and has gone down with 
them, in obedience to the principle that the people 
who are poor determine the moral and spiritual 
standards of the community. 

Must Guard People's Source of Income. We 
have had in all the American population a devo- 
tion to the poor which is religious and educational, 
but not economic. I am urging the sincere care of 
the income of the poorer members. The commu- 
nity must see that they have enough to live on, and 
that their sources of income are not impaired. It 
is not sufficient that we preach the gospel to the 
poor, and care nothing for their living. They will 
not take from us the word of eternal life if we do 
not guard their possession of a livelihood. The 
beginning of the process of eternal life is the eating 
of daily bread. We do not need to care for the 
income of the well-to-do. There is nothing re- 
ligious about the salary of a man who has ten 
thousand dollars a year, but the income of a man 
who never has more than one hundred dollars to 
spare is a religious problem to him and to his 
family and to the community. 

Educational Measures not Enough. Educational 
measures for the poor are not sufficient. The pub- 
lic school system, which is standardized so that the 
child of the poorest can attend school and is 
protected by law so that he must attend, does not 
protect the community against poverty. We have 



138 The Church of the Open Country 

nothing within the educational system that leads a 
whole population into ownership of land and tools. 
Indeed the States in which the proportions of tenant 
farmers are increasing are the States with an ex- 
cellent educational system and all the children of 
the people going to school. 

Churches Built by Working Folk. Meantime 
the churches of the country are probably built, cer- 
tainly their first structures were erected, out of the 
contributions of people many of whom never owned 
a thousand dollars. They are the folk who give 
for the establishment of religious institutions. 
They know the value of religion to themselves. 
They show by their gifts in the hardest situations 
of life, as on the frontier, that common religious 
experience is precious above all things. To no other 
social institution do they contribute so much and 
so universally as to the erection of churches and to 
the support of ministers. 

A Church Losing Its Democratic Basis. Yet 
strange to say, the attention of churches is too fre- 
quently, after their earliest days, turned upon the 
few persons of means in their membership. I re- 
member a church in Nebraska, standing on the rim 
of an unexplored prairie, which had but ten years 
of growth behind it, in which one man, giving five 
hundred dollars a year to the minister, was the con- 
trolling factor. The church had been erected by the 
homesteaders in the days of the bitter poverty of 
Nebraska, but soon it lost the democracy of its 
early methods and looked to the prosperous citizen 



Poverty and Prosperity 139 

for his gift, which, in spite of his wisdom and 
nobility of character, was corrupting and degrading 
to them. 

Need of Church as a Training Center. The im- 
portant principle in Church life throughout the 
country as a whole to-day is to make the Church a 
channel for consecrating the growing prosperity of 
the people. Poverty which is governed by the com- 
munity, with pauperism excluded by the common 
action of the people, is a religious condition, but it 
is for the Church to organize this into a system of 
contribution, by which the people shall continue to 
give as they prosper. The Church will thus become 
the religious drill-ground of the whole population. 
They will learn in it the lessons of benevolence, of 
missionary giving, and of stewardship. Such a 
Church will train leaders in the great enterprises 
of the future. From such a Church will come the 
presidents of colleges and workers in the great 
charities, the millionaires who give in their abun- 
dance to splendid enterprises, and the philanthro- 
pists whose princely gifts will lead in solving the 
terrifying problems of the world. 

Principle of Envelope System. This is the mean- 
ing of the envelope system of contributions, which 
does not standardize the gifts of the whole congre- 
gation upon the rich man who may pass away or 
who may do worse by remaining and controlling 
the church. The envelope gifts of all the people 
in the church look alike. Giving to the Lord by 
this method makes the passing of the plate a holy 



140 The Church of the Open Country 

act, unsullied by envy and by shame. In a working 
community it is one of the most essential ways of 
securing the attendance of the poor at church. 
Congregations all over the United States are trans- 
forming their system of pew-rents into a system of 
envelope giving. This system must not be thought 
of as " businesslike " alone. It is a method in the 
administration of the churches which expresses a 
greater wisdom and a new devotion; for the peo- 
ple are prospering, even in the poverty which can 
give only through envelopes. The church is their 
common possession, and by this system the poor can 
give to the church in the same way as the widow 
gave to the temple, whose two mites were " all she 
had." 

People Prizing a Common Project. A church in 
New York State, whose bills were all paid from 
an endowment, decided to turn to the support of a 
foreign missionary. Their pastor, who received 
nothing from them for his living, led them into 
giving to the support of a missionary board. The 
result of a canvass of the community in this inter- 
est was surprising to all. More people took part 
in this act of giving than in any other one collective 
act of the congregation. The list of givers to the 
salary in China was longer than the church-mem- 
bership, larger than that of the Sunday-school, 
with the young people's societies combined. Every- 
body desired to have a hand in this community sup- 
port of a missionary physician in China. The 
community itself was entering into the days of 



Poverty and Prosperity 141 

cash values. A profitable form of farming sus- 
tained country people there. They recognized their 
obligations to the Lord in the cheerful and hearty 
support of this common project. 

Result of a Thorough Canvass. A Wisconsin 
minister began his pastorate on $450 per year. He 
did not tell the bride whom he asked to share 
this munificent living that one tenth of it was al- 
ready promised to the Lord. Against her vocifer- 
ous protest he paid his tithe during their first year. 
He went with equal vigor to his church officers and 
insisted that everybody in the congregation should 
be canvassed for an offering to the Lord ; and when 
they after a feeble effort stopped short, he offered 
to their amazement to canvass the rest himself, and 
against their protest he did so, bringing in inside 
of a year so much as to increase his own salary and 
the missionary gifts of the church up to a scale of 
$1,600 a year. The principle on which this work 
was done was the frank, manly demand, " Pay to 
the Lord what you owe." Mr. Breeze pressed this 
demand so far as to go to Milwaukee and pre- 
sent himself at the office of the owner of a farm in 
his parish whose tenants worshiped in his church. 
He was rewarded with a generous yearly contribu- 
tion. 

A Gift Bringing Joy. Among his parishioners 
was a poor washerwoman who, when he asked her 
for a gift, burst into tears. Both she and the 
minister were from Wales and he spoke to her in 
the sweet tongue that touched her heart, telling 



142 The Church of the Open Country 

her that he wanted her to give out of her poverty, 
and asking her if she could not give two cents a 
week. This she cheerfully promised, and the woman 
came to church. Her glowing face and fervor in 
the service, Sunday after Sunday, was due not to 
his sermons, but to her gift, for she knew that she 
was giving out of her poverty and struggle "all 
she had." 

Response of Poor in St. George's. This is the 
secret of the administration of such parishes as St. 
George's in New York City, where the poor have 
been assembled in great congregations within the 
walls which before had congregations of two or 
three or five families. At one time this parish had 
seven thousand members, twenty-five hundred of 
whom lived east of Second Avenue, no one hav- 
ing an income of more than $15 per week, but 
every member of this church was accustomed to 
give. If he failed to put his weekly contribution 
in the plate, he received the same strict treatment 
as the richer man whose gift would seem more 
desirable. The nickels and dimes of the very poor 
were sought by this parish with the same thorough- 
ness and valued as highly as the dollars and the 
thousands of dollars of the few rich members of the 
parish. This is what it means to put a spiritual 
value on money. The spiritual value is the commu- 
nity value. The church is built out of the sacred 
income of the poor. The income of poor people is 
always a sacred thing in the religion of the com- 
munity. 



Poverty and Prosperity 143 

Church Budget. A big problem in the religious 
administration of the life of poor people is to 
budget the church's financial burdens for the year 
in so far as the policy of the denomination will per- 
mit. At the beginning of any year let the officers of 
the church find out how much they need for local 
expenses, for benevolences, and for missionary gifts. 
Let this amount be distributed among the members 
of the church and congregation, assigning to each 
one what he probably ought to give, beginning with 
the poorest. Let the whole congregation then be 
canvassed and a contribution be secured from every 
member. It will be found that the gifts of the con- 
gregation will correspond in the total to the amount 
budgeted by the officers, and these gifts will come in 
regularly. The congregation will respond to a 
method which respects them and which unites them. 

Duplex Envelope. For this purpose the duplex 
envelope is excellently suited. In one small envelope 
there are two pockets, one for local support and one 
for benevolences. The destination of these gifts 
can be printed on the outside ; and for greater con- 
venience, on the side of the flap, in order to avoid 
a mistake by the giver. This envelope is to be 
torn in two and the money for benevolences is given 
to its proper treasurer, and that for local support to 
the treasurer of the church. Out of this constant 
stream of small gifts the whole enterprise of the 
church can be carried on successfully. 

Advantage of Budget System. One great ad- 
vantage of this budget is that a church cannot be 



144 The Church of the Open Country 

stampeded by some forcible speaker. The minister 
and officers know what they propose to do for that 
year and nomadic appeals of peripatetic advocates 
of special causes cannot be made, except to the 
officers themselves; who can grant out of the surplus 
of their budget a certain amount. If the giving of 
the congregation is consolidated, the people are fed- 
erated in one act of benevolence. They are being 
trained in financing the kingdom of God. Their 
prosperity is under one common organizing prin- 
ciple. 

Contributions According to Prosperity. It is es- 
sential to this method that the people give in accord- 
ance as they " may prosper." The officers of the 
church are the watchful guardians of the conscience 
of the people. It is their business to train the 
people in giving. They will know who has pros- 
pered and who has suffered. In their hands too, 
as the most fitting leaders, is the study of the 
great causes of the time and the determination to 
which of them that church shall give. Most peo- 
ple live their religious life within the bounds of the 
congregation in which they worship, and the officers 
become the watchmen on the tower of Zion, who 
direct the forces of the church toward the great 
enterprises of the Kingdom. 

Ministers Should Have a Living Wage. The 
great problem in this new administration of the 
prosperity of the people is the supporting of minis- 
ters. The weakness, especially of country churches, 
is expressed in the fact that the ministers have not 



Poverty and Prosperity 145 

enough to live on. Of course there are a few men 
in country churches who have done heroically 
on $600 per year, but unfortunately their num- 
ber is very small. The actual fact is that most 
of the men who live on six hundred or three 
hundred dollars a year and who continue to minister 
to the same people for as much as five years, are, as 
a result, not highly efficient. The uniting of 
financial and spiritual genius in one man is very 
uncommon. The churches cannot expect to find 
good ministers who could organize a successful 
department store. Ministers in the country ought 
to have a living wage. They have a right to ask no 
more, but they have a right to ask enough to keep 
the average man in ordinary comfort at the work 
required in that parish. 

A Mechanic's Living Wage. Recent studies by 
the Russell Sage Foundation in New York State 
show that in the smaller communities of that State a 
mechanic, working at one of the trades, can live 
on $800 per year. In this standard of living are 
included sufficient food, housing, clothing, medical 
care> recreation, and other essentials of life, to keep 
a family of five. Below this amount it was dis- 
covered that family life degenerates, children be- 
come sickly, and death comes too often untimely. 
But at this standard it is believed a family of five 
can be expected to live. 

Average Annual Pastoral Support. Our interest 
here is in the man employed by a religious body, 
namely, a minister of the gospel. Let us give him 



146 The Church of the Open Country 

as good a living as a mechanic requires for bare 
subsistence. There are many country churches that 
do not pay so much to a minister. They may find, 
if they please, in this fact the reason why their min- 
isters, if they are young men, leave them as soon as 
their children are born and begin to cost money, 
and why they can only expect to secure old men, 
without families to educate. Such churches above 
all others need the permanent services of ministers 
who can live with them at least five years or ten, 
and accomplish some cumulative and lasting work. 
Every church should pay to its minister every year 
of his work an amount sufficient for an average year 
of his life. No church ought to take a minister in 
his cheap years and let some other church support 
him in his expensive years. This is the way by 
which country churches exact " graft " of the town 
and city churches ; and the punishment they deserve 
comes upon them, for they are the weaker and the 
town and city churches are the stronger. The 
strength of the church is not expressed in what the 
minister gives it, but in what it does for him and 
for the Kingdom. 

Cost of Keeping a Horse. Taking now the minis- 
ter who has as good housing and clothing and food 
and medical care as a mechanic, let us see what he 
needs to do the work that the mechanic is not called 
on to do. First of all, he must own a horse, which 
will cost him for keep $150 per year. The farmer's 
horse costs no such amount. A minister in the 
country had to spend $150 to $200 every year for 



Poverty and Prosperity 147 

five years to keep his horse. Except as a means of 
serving his people, he had no need of a horse. In 
the same parish he now owns a farm on which he 
keeps a horse; and he costs him from $25 to $50 per 
year. It is easy to see that the farmer in a commu- 
nity cannot understand why the minister's horse is 
so expensive, for very few farmers know that their 
own horses cost them anything, except the charge 
by the blacksmith. The minister has to pay cash 
for everything. 

Allowance for Books. Now let us give this min- 
ister the tools of his trade; namely, books. These 
are as essential to him as the reaper and the hay- 
rake are to the farmer. They have the same place in 
his occupation as the corn-planter has with the 
Illinois farmer. They economize his work and en- 
able him to cultivate the soil of modern minds. If 
he has not books, his people will not long hear him. 
It is his business to know the books of the world and 
to convey to his people the great thoughts of great 
souls. Let us give the minister, therefore, $50 per 
year for books. He is a very poor tiller of the souls 
of his parish, if he does not read one book a week at 
a cost of one dollar per week. 

Income for Old Age. The income for old age 
should be provided for in the budget of a minister. 
He must not be looking out for good investments or 
spending his time speculating in land. " They that 
proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel." I do 
not think a minister in a country community ought 
to be obliged to keep even a garden, but that is a 



148 The Church of the Open Country 

matter of opinion and personal fitness. It is all- 
essential that he should till the soil of his people's 
minds, and if he does that, some one else can raise 
the vegetables. So that against old age he must be 
protected by $100 per year in his economic scale, 
from the time of his ordination at twenty-five to 
the day of his retirement at sixty-five. This invest- 
ment will support a man and wife comfortably in 
their declining years. 

Education of Children. The children of the min- 
ister should be educated as well as their parents. 
The universal feeling of all kinds of folk is, that 
their children should be trained to know as much as 
their parents and to do as well. To educate the 
children of a Protestant minister will require $100 
per year for each child from its birth until it is 
of age. In our estimate let us allow $300 for the 
average Protestant minister's family. 

Summary of Expenditures. Now to add up all 
these details : $800 enables the minister to live as 
well as the working man who can barely subsist, 
with health and unimpaired vigor, in the State of 
New York; $150 for a horse; $50 for books; $100 
for old age ; and $300 for the education of children, 
we have a total of $1,400 per year. 

Estimate of Marriage Fees and Donations. Al- 
lowance in this budget must be made for marriage 
fees and donations in the minister's income. In the 
country the minister may receive from marriage fees 
fifty to one hundred dollars and from donations as 
much more. In a generous parish, where many 



Poverty and Prosperity 149 

farmers not members of any church desire to con- 
tribute to the minister's living, the total of these 
donations in a year amounted to $40. The diffi- 
culty in reckoning such gifts in the budget is that 
year by year as farming becomes more systematic 
their total amount decreases. Though the number 
of donations is as great as ever, their value to the 
minister is much less than of old. Moreover, the 
donation is a tradition, but country life has many 
new families who do not know the old ways, and 
they give nothing. I would estimate, therefore, the 
donations and marriage fees at a sum not in excess 
of one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars 
per year. There is no recorded instance in which the 
donations and fees have been so large in recent 
years as to detain a minister in the country when 
his salary was insufficient for his support. 

No Allowance for Travel. If he makes no in- 
vestments and secures wealth from no other source, 
as he should not do, if he is dependent upon his peo- 
ple to whom he ministers in spiritual things, $1,400 
is what he actually spends year after year if he keeps 
a horse, uses books, has three children, and grows 
old in serving a country parish. This allows noth- 
ing for travel, nothing for cultivating those sources 
of thought and feeling which will be helpful to his 
people through the attendance upon conventions and 
other public gatherings. But he is doing work that 
costs him year after year the amount named. Now 
it is the difference between this amount and the 
average country minister's salary that is the main 



150 The Church of the Open Country 

cause for the constant movement of country min- 
isters from place to place. 

Motives that Cause Changes. The one motive 
which above all other things causes him " to seek a 
new call " is the desire to educate his children, and 
to secure enough to live on. The anxiety in regard 
to old age is an increasing force in this dire process, 
as years pass; and when the minister comes to be 
forty he adopts new measures for the years which he 
sees before him of declining power and efficiency. 
It is useless to argue that ministers should live on 
less. The important thing is to provide that which 
will enable them, and will content them, to live in 
country places. The experience of the churches 
shows that in country communities where the min- 
ister is sufficiently well paid a sufficient supply of 
good men can always be secured and retained. 

Farmers More Prosperous. The importance of 
this matter grows upon modern people with the 
increasing prosperity of country communities. 
Farmers who have tilled the soil with difficulty and 
made a poor living for a good part of a lifetime, 
have in recent years largely prospered. " I have 
made more money in the past three years than in all 
my farming before," said a farmer of forty-four 
years of age recently, and all over the United States 
farmers are facing the better prospect which is be- 
fore their industry. 

Scientific Management will Increase Profits. 
Moreover the methods made valuable from scientific 
agriculture are now seen to contain vast potential 




THOROUGHBRED STOCK OX A MODERN FARM 



Poverty and Prosperity 151 

wealth for the farmer. Depleted soils are being re- 
stored, and although a period of poverty and strug- 
gle will be necessary in restoring them, their future 
is one of great wealth, and permanent tillage of 
these soils under scientific management promises 
cumulative gains. Cooperation among farmers is 
seen to be profitable. Some of those who are co- 
operating in America are so prosperous that their 
leaders fear for the result. I would not exaggerate 
this prosperity, for I know that it has sharp limita- 
tions at present, but we know the way by which the 
farmer shall prosper in the future. Already many 
have realized great gains. The consecration of this 
prosperity is the immediate task of the country 
Church. 

Message in Terms of Experience. We are in the 
midst of a period of speculative farming. This 
means the turning of agricultural values for the 
time being into cash, the buying and selling of many 
farms, and the redistribution of land. Let us under- 
stand this process and speak to the present-day 
countryman in terms of his own immediate experi- 
ence. Only thus will we minister to him in the 
things of God. Like the old evangelist, let the mod- 
ern church " speak to their condition." 

Rural Population Decreasing. Life in the open 
country will always be attenuated so far as we can 
now see. Indeed, there are those who say that the 
country should be robbed of its institutions and the 
life of country people centered in the towns. This 
I do not believe, but there is no evidence at present 



152 The Church of the Open Country 

of an increase of the country population. The rural 
exodus is still going on and it is the opinion of such 
observers as L. H. Bailey that it will continue even 
further to diminish the numbers of people in the 
country. Among them the institutions will be few, 
but they ought to be powerful. 

Magnify the Church. The Church and the school 
must always be in the country, if the people are 
there. All the greater should be the Church and all 
the more influential the school. The life of com- 
mon folk in the laborious and difficult task of suc- 
cessful agriculture should be dignified with great 
and beautiful churches. Magnify the Church. 
Write its name large, not small. Think of it in 
terms of the whole community. Make it the dig- 
nifying building in the whole landscape of country 
life. Put the leadership of it in the hands of the 
strongest men and furnish them with the fuel for 
their fires and the oil for their engines. Assemble 
the people in great congregations, not in small, and 
make the Church the expression of the large things 
in the life of the people, a contrast very often to 
many of the detailed and intricate and annoying 
trifles which wear the life out of the farmer. Let 
the Church express the idealism of the farmer, and 
in order to do this the leading people of the country 
community must give very largely of their means 
and all the people of the community must con- 
secrate unto the Lord what they have to give, as 
he has prospered them. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF SERVICE 



The ideal solution of the country Church problem is to have in 
each rural community one strong church adequately supported, prop- 
erly equipped, ministered to by an able man — a church which leads in 
community service. The path to the realization of such an ideal 
is rough and thorny. Church federation, however, promises large 
results in this direction and should be especially encouraged. . . . 
Furthermore, there is supreme necessity for adding dignity to the 
country parish. Too often at present the rural parish is regarded 
either as a convenient laboratory for the clerical novice, or as an 
asylum for the decrepit or inefficient. The country parish must be 
a parish for our ablest and strongest. The ministry of the most 
Christlike must be to the hill towns of Galilee as well as to 
Jerusalem. — K. L. Butterfield 

Let no one suppose that philanthropy is the chief medicine for the 
social ill health of the country. The intelligent student who pos- 
sesses the true spirit of helpfulness may find in the rural problem 
ample scope for both his brain and his heart. But he will make a 
fundamental and irreparable error if he starts out with the notion 
that pity, charity, and direct gifts win the day. You may flatter 
the American farmer; you cannot patronize him. He demands ' and 
needs, not philanthropy, but simple justice, equal opportunity, and 
better facilities for education. He is neither slave nor pauper. — 
X. L. Butterfield 



154 



VII 

THE PRINCIPLE OF SERVICE 

Social Service Defined. After one of the great 
Protestant bodies had determined upon the prin- 
ciples of social service as its ideal for the future, and 
had passed the most elaborate statements, calling 
upon all its people to engage in social service, the 
presiding officer turned to a friend and said, " What 
is social service ? " The answer to this question is 
the present task of the Christian student and worker. 
Social service is the ministry of a man, or group 
of men to a society. It may not be social service 
to lift a man who has fallen. It is not social service 
to lend money to a poor acquaintance. Such acts 
are personal services. Altruism is not social serv- 
ice. There are many personal services rendered in 
the world in which Christian folk are well trained, 
and an atmosphere of genial altruism prevails in our 
time. It is an enjoyable experience to give a little 
money to a beggar. People in the cities have to be 
trained and educated to resist the impulse to give 
in a random way to individuals in apparent need. 
This, however, is not social service. We are con- 
fronted with needy societies of men. Of course I 
do not mean lodges, or clubs, or other artificial or- 

155 



156 The Church of the Open Country 

ganizations, but essential and instinctive societies, 
in which the life of men is immersed. 

Service of Groups. As the fish lives in the pond 
or as the apple lives on the tree, so every man lives 
in a society. The smallest society of all is the house- 
hold, and the greatest is the nation. Cities are socie- 
ties, and the country community is a society, because 
in it an individual can pass the round of his life 
from birth to death. Social service is usually an act 
of an organization or group of men. An individual 
alone is usually inadequate to serve a society. He 
must have the support and allegiance of others in an 
organized group. For this reason men organize 
churches, charities, schools, and city governments, 
in order that groups of men may through team- 
work minister to societies. The school-teacher who 
comes into a community serves through an organ- 
ization, and represents a group of people devoted 
to the problem of education. The pastor who min- 
isters to a country community is strengthened by the 
allegiance of his fellow-officers and of the denomi- 
nation behind him, of which the symbols are in his 
ordination and installation. They fortify him for 
his service and his leadership of that people. 

Serving Marginal People. To serve a society is 
not a quantitative matter. It is not like packing ap- 
ples, or shoveling coal, in which every apple and 
every lump of coal must be handled uniformly. The 
first thing to learn in social service is selection. 
Most of the people in a society do not need to be 
approached. We serve a society by helping the 




PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CAZENOVIA, NEW YORK 

DR. PERSONS, THE PASTOR, REACHES THE COUNTRY SECTIONS BY 

EVANGELISM 



The Principle of Service 157 

marginal people in that society, to help whom is the 
benefit of all. These are the children and youth, 
the working men, the " renters," and in general, the 
poor, the sick, and those who are about to die. Mar- 
ginal people are the people on the edge of the so- 
ciety, who must struggle to maintain themselves in 
it. Those who are well-to-do or well fixed do not 
need to be served. It is their business to support 
the community leader : and if he makes good among 
marginal people, they will gladly sustain him. For 
social instinct and a sense of social unity com- 
mand them. 

The Marginal Conscience. All organized things 
are valued by their marginal parts. The economists 
say that wages are fixed in every scale of pay by 
estimating the value to the employer of the last 
man he hires, the man who is just productive enough 
to stay in the shop. Other men who produce more 
create the employer's profit, but they get no more 
pay than the man whose work is just good enough to 
be tolerated. He is the marginal man in the fac- 
tory. The same applies in moral and spiritual af- 
fairs. The working man or half-grown boy in the 
town has the marginal conscience of the town. His 
ways of looking at things are the most contagious, 
and his experiences are the common experiences of 
the town; he has the price mark on him. 

General Application of Principle. This principle 
has a very general application. If you are going to 
paint a view of the ocean, you will sit down on the 
shore and picture on your canvas the margin of the 



158 The Church of the Open Country 

ocean. There are only a very few pictures of the 
ocean that represent the waves as seen from a ship. 
The literature of love represents marginal love, the 
affection of those about to be married. There are 
very few books on the profound and vital experi- 
ences of married folk. The State has to deal with 
conduct on its margins, where orderly behavior 
breaks down in crime. The State has very little to 
do with well-behaved people, but with those who 
get into trouble the State deals by means of the 
policeman and the court. The public values learn- 
ing, not by the few men who are encyclopedic, but 
the common measure of learning is in the amount 
that an ordinary student can master. The unit of 
measure in education is the student, not the pro- 
fessor. Industry is valued in the churches of our 
time, not any longer in terms of millionaires or any 
other rich men, but of the working man. The prob- 
lem of industrial life for which the public cares is 
the problem of the poor. This was not always so. 
The difference is in this, that in former times we 
had plenty and there need be none poor. In our 
day we are confronted with a struggle for sub- 
sistence on the part of most of our people. 

Christ and Marginal People. The central con- 
cern of society, under the influence of Christ, is 
with those people who have the struggle. Christ 
always worked among the poor, and endured much 
opposition in order to do so. He clearly under- 
stood what he was about. His policy was deliber- 
ate. When the excellent people of his time, good 



The Principle of Service 159 

substantial Pharisees, whose lives were orderly and 
comfortable, objected to his selection of marginal 
people as his daily companions, he defended him- 
self. He interpreted social service, in the fifteenth 
chapter of Luke, in three short stories. He de- 
clared that these illustrate the mind of God. Each 
of them is a story about a little society, and he de- 
clared that the marginal unit set the value on all the 
other units in the society. 

Principles Illustrated. One society was a flock 
of sheep. He declared that when one sheep is lost 
the value of all the rest is measured in the shep- 
herd's mind by the lost one, and he takes no rest 
until he has found the marginal sheep. In the 
household the savings of the mother were ten pieces 
of money. When she lost one she set no store by 
the others until she found that one. Their value 
was measured in her mind by the one marginal 
piece. The third society was a gentleman's estate, 
and the whole story of this house is expressed in 
the prodigal conduct of one of the sons. In the 
mind of the father nothing else was of concern 
until his boy who was lost was found. The heart 
of the family estimated all things by the marginal 
son. 

Organizations for Children and Youth. In early 
country life in America there were no marginal 
people, because there was no organic society. 
Household farming was the beginning of organ- 
ized country life. In that day everybody had land. 
The service of the Church must be not to the poor, 



160 The Church of the Open Country 

for there should be no poor — people who were in 
need were supposed to be shiftless. The Church 
therefore organized its ministries to the children 
and adolescent youth of the households. That 
period from 1800 to 1890 was the classic period 
in the development in American churches of Sun- 
day-schools, which culminated in the young people's 
societies of Christian Endeavor, Baptist Unions, 
Epworth Leagues, and similar organizations ex- 
pressive of the Church's joy in her young people. 
It was an organization of marginal people under 
the shelter of the Church, but they were the mar- 
ginal people of the household societies. 

Church Facing New Problems. In the past 
twenty years the churches have become concerned 
about communities. Without forgetting the house- 
hold, the heart of the Church has been enlarged to 
take in a whole community. In the open country 
speculative farming has seriously affected the house- 
hold. It has prepared the way for community life. 
A new figure has come into the concern of the 
Church in our day. In the cities the churches are 
facing the working man and his problems. In the 
country the churches are confronted with the tenant 
farmer. These are new types of households in the 
country. They look upon life in the marginal way. 
They are as different from landowners and from 
the owners in business as children are from parents 
or as the youth is from the elderly man. They are 
the marginal people, whom to serve is to serve the 
whole community. 



The Principle of Service 161 

Ministering in Common Things. The great dan- 
ger of the teacher, the pastor, the churchworker, is 
that he will be too nice, too scholastic, and too much 
concerned with rare and curious things. Service of 
the community is concerned with common things. 
These common things make up the life of marginal 
people. The church visitor goes to a mechanic's 
household, talks about children, sickness, wages, bid 
age, savings, love and hate and fear, and other great 
common experiences of mankind. When she goes 
to the home of a wealthy man for dinner the con- 
versation is about automobiles, aeroplanes, foreign 
travel, the latest books, rare furniture, paintings, 
fine linen, and fashions. These are all rare and curi- 
ous things. The reason why we incline to talk about 
them is partly in the fact that they are uncommon, 
and most people do not have access to them. Man 
inclines to have things peculiar to himself and 
his little set of folk. 

Jesus Ministered to Poor. But in the rich man's 
house the things of concern in the poor man's house 
are also talked about. These are common experi- 
ences. Everything said at the poor man's table has 
equal value at the rich man's table, because sickness 
and children and old age and hate and fear and love 
are common human experiences. The life of the 
poor man is made up of common things, the things 
which are universal, because the poor man is the 
marginal man. He has the moral and spiritual price 
mark on him. He is the standard of human value. 
That is the reason why Jesus devoted his life to 



1 62 The Church of the Open Country 

the poor, because by working for the poor he could 
work for all mankind. Whatever is done in terms 
of the common, that is, marginal life, is done for 
the whole community. 

Service to Landless People. In the period of 
speculative farming the marginal people are the 
poor. Capital is the determining standard and the 
people without capital are on the margin of society. 
The man who would serve the community in a 
region in which farms are being bought and sold 
should apply his ministry to those who are without 
land and without capital, because by ministering to 
them he will serve the whole community. Moreover 
his service to them should be in the terms of their 
own life. If he would reach them, he must help 
them to make money and to use money in helpful 
and Christian ways. 

Example of Wisconsin Minister. A minister in 
Wisconsin, whose preparation had included some 
years as detective, to the sharpening of his wits and 
the increasing of his resources, had become the pas- 
tor of a community of railroad men and farmers. 
Suddenly by the fiat of the railroad, hundreds of 
his parishioners moved away in a day, leaving the 
church and the school and the store in a depleted 
community robbed of more than one half its 
strength. Mr. Martin turned to the farming of the 
land himself. Realizing that his parishioners were 
now only farmers, he led them in the tillage of the 
soil, setting the example to encourage those who 
were likely to despair. By his leadership the owners 



The Principle of Service 163, 

of a pickle factory were induced to build a plant in 
the community, and farmers were persuaded to* 
undertake the raising of cucumbers on a large scale. 
He assembled the farmers, and persuaded them, with 
the storekeeper, to transform the store into a co- 
operative enterprise, with a capital of $12,000, dis- 
tributed in one hundred and twenty shares. On 
this capital interest is paid not to exceed six per 
cent., and the surplus profit of the store, in which 
the storekeeper owns ten shares, is distributed 
equally among the farmers according to the size 
of their accounts. This community has been re- 
juvenated by the leadership of a man who was un- 
willing that a change in the market should ruin the 
community. 

Pastors and Scientific Farming. In the days of 
organized farming the margin of service is shifted 
to the farmer who is learning the science of agri- 
culture. The community leader ministers to these 
in terms of better farming. By means of improved 
agriculture they are to survive in the community, 
and the service to these people on the margin of 
the community is in training them to till the land 
by modern science. Such social service as this was 
demanded by ex-Governor Beaver of Pennsylvania 
in a public address. " The trouble with the country 
minister is that he does not know how to farm. The 
old-style preachers could farm and did farm. They 
taught their people how to farm the land. The 
theological seminaries should so train the minister 
that he would know how to bore a hole in the 



164 The Church of the Open Country 

ground and see whether that spot would do for the 
planting of a Baldwin apple-tree." 

Ministry in Social Terms. Near Albion, New 
York, in the great apple country, the Rev. Mr. 
Hares has extended the service of his church to the 
people of the whole community. Like every other 
successful act, it is difficult to analyze, but the obvi- 
ous thing is that the people of the community have 
been united through a ministry to the young people 
and the working people. The church is thronged 
with gatherings at which all are present. The pro- 
grams of these social meetings are musical, literary, 
recreative, and they appeal to the mind which in that 
community is marginal. For the trouble in that 
great, rich apple country is lack of social life which 
will make the country worth while. There is plenty 
of money, but little motive for workingmen or for 
the youth of the community to remain out in the 
country where the money is made. The service of 
this church is founded in a ministry to the whole 
community in social terms, and its results are gath- 
ered in religious union and spiritual gains. 

Ministry in Economic Terms. Professor L. H. 
Bailey of Cornell University says that the best sys- 
tem of cooperative creameries in the United States 
is in Minnesota, and it was the work of a country 
minister. Ministers who are so helping the com- 
munity as this one are able to command the re- 
ligious forces of the community, because they serve 
the marginal needs of the community. The Minne- 
sota parish of which this man was minister was 



The Principle of Service 165 

suffering from the poverty under which the milk 
farmer must labor. Under his guidance they were 
lifted out of this condition and their example has 
been widely followed throughout the State. Each 
of these cases serves to illustrate the principle of 
selection, by which social service shall be successful 
That principle is that, to serve the whole commu- 
nity, a man or woman must bestow his life upon 
those who, being helped, will benefit the whole- 
community. 

Duty of Evangelism. True evangelism is an ex- 
pression of this principle, but much evangelism ig- 
nores it. In the open country the village church 
has the duty of evangelism. The people of the vil- 
lage church cannot have the same influence in the 
country as country people can have, and their pastor, 
as a rule, cannot be a pastor of country people if he 
does not live among them. All the more clearly is 
his duty as an evangelist seen. 

Ministry in Evangelism. The Rev. Clair S. 
Adams, " the little minister," of Bement, Illinois, 
has five out-stations from his church in the town. 
Against the affectionate protest of his people he has 
gone on a wide circuit for several years past, and 
has bound up into one great parish a number of 
school districts, abandoned churches, and neglected 
fields. The invitations to him for further work of 
this sort are more than he is able to meet. Mr. 
Adams is a man of fine evangelistic spirit; while at 
the same time a sociological student and worker of 
ripe experience. In his preaching, out in the coun- 



1 66 The Church of the Open Country 

try, he preaches the conversion of the soul. Fre- 
quent revivals attend his ministry, throughout the 
whole region. His devoted assistant, Miss Bowen, 
is of the same spirit, and her work has been hon- 
ored by the courts, in her appointment as probation 
officer throughout this region. A finer example 
could not be had of the ministry of a village church, 
through its workers, to the margin of a great farm- 
ing community. 

Example of Dr. Persons. At Cazenovia, New 
York, Dr. Silas E. Persons has in the same way 
yoked up the country districts with his town church. 
In the town he is a pastor : in the country he is an 
evangelist. The preaching of a simple gospel of re- 
pentance and salvation characterizes the occasional 
visits to the country, in which he cannot render the 
elaborate and detailed service of a resident pastor. 
But in these neglected and remote districts this is 
precisely the service needed. Dr. Persons is con- 
vinced of the great value of evangelism to the people 
on the outer rim of the town. They are marginal 
people to the town market, to the social life, and to 
the churches of the town. To them evangelism is 
the proper marginal service. 

Secret of Sunday's Success. Evangelism, if it 
be obedient to this principle of social service, must 
interpret the people on the margin of the community 
in their own terms. The Rev. " Billy " Sunday is 
a noted figure in the religious life of the Middle 
West. His meetings are triumphantly successful 
in manv industrial centers. No one need defend the 




o 



The Principle of Service 167 

violations of good taste of which he is accused. 
My purpose here is to say that his success seems to 
be based on his knowledge of the thought and feel- 
ing of the working people of the towns. He knows 
how to talk their language. He has been a man of 
the street, a ball player, and remains still at heart a. 
marginal man. There is nothing nice or proper 
about him. There is everything vigorous, hearty,, 
and zealous. The result is that his meetings are 
thronged with the very people who live on the mar- 
gin of these communities. Working men without 
capital, laborers who do not own their tools, renters 
who do not own the land they till, all come to 
his meetings. The striking thing is that, while his 
violence of language frequently offends the well-to- 
do people of the community, he always attracts 
them to the meetings before the series is over. Con- 
spicuous among his most thorough converts are peo- 
ple who are central to the life of the community, 
lawyers, delicate women, owners of large business 
plants, and occasionally he makes a convert of an 
exquisite preacher. 

A Young College Graduate's Achievement. In 
the middle of Illinois there is a farming community, 
centering in a hamlet, where for thirty years there 
had been no religious service. A student graduating 
from college spent the summer on his father's farm 
and began to hold meetings assisted by the young 
people of his church, in this neglected neighbor- 
hood, which was the common margin of three or 
four surrounding towns. His work was attended 



1 68 The Church of the Open Country 

with extraordinary results, and within a year a 
chapel was erected, comfortable and ample for the 
seating of two hundred people, and the gratitude of 
the neighborhood was expressed in a stained-glass 
window, in which they insisted on placing his 
name. They call it the Lin Hurie Chapel. His 
work had the extraordinary value that religious 
service has to the margin of community life. 

The Ministry of a Gentle Woman. In 1907 the 
Committee on Morals and Rural Conditions, of the 
Congregational Conference of Massachusetts, whose 
duties were to evangelize as well as to study the 
neglected regions lying between the towns of cer- 
tain portions of the State, requested the appointment 
of a woman for this work. Miss Anna B. Taft 
had that year attended the Silver Bay Conference 
of the Missionary Education Movement and had 
Deen inspired with a desire to serve in some definite 
capacity for the people near her home. She was em- 
ployed for this work, and entered upon two years 
of devoted service, with constantly increasing influ- 
ence, to the marginal people of Massachusetts. Her 
growing influence and usefulness were due, not 
merely to her gentle breeding and capacity for 
abundance of work, but in part to the exceptional 
value of her religious ministry to marginal people. 

" Brush Arbor " Churches. In Tennessee, Ken- 
tucky, Missouri, and other States of the Southwest, 
churches are very often founded as " brush arbor " 
churches, a meeting being appointed in a neighbor- 
hood where there is no " church-house." The 



The Principle of Service 169' 

" brush arbor " is made in a grove of trees. Fasten- 
ing rude timbers overhead from tree to tree, and 
driving poles in the ground, where necessary for a 
support, a roof is made by rudely thatching the area 
with boughs cut from trees. Thus the people are 
protected from the sun and in some degree from 
rain. These " brush arbor " churches will seat five 
hundred people on occasion. The seats are made, 
as the other furniture, by driving stakes in the 
ground for the support of planks on which the peo- 
ple sit. It is said by superintendents of churches in 
this section that many of the best churches in the 
Southwest grew out of " brush arbor " beginnings. 
This is a method which explores the margin of re- 
ligious organization and is eminently well suited 
to the open country and the temperate climate of 
the southwestern States. 

Enterprising Village Blacksmith. At Florida, 
New York, the old church of the farmers is matched 
now by a church of Roman Catholic Poles. The 
old Protestant folk are slowly losing ground: the 
Poles are rapidly gaining. The Poles are indus- 
trious, thrifty, and far-sighted in their farming. 
The Presbyterians are inclined to abandon the farm 
for the life of the cities, but in the old church is a 
brotherhood of men who under the leadership of the 
town blacksmith, a man who has had the same shop 
in the village for over fifty years, have undertaken 
community enterprises. The success in these enter- 
prises is due to the fact that they serve marginal 
needs of the community. 



170 The Church of the Open Country 

Streets Lighted and Bank Organized. The first 
move was to light the streets of the town. Much 
discomfort and some disorder had resulted from 
dark streets. The whole village united in the enter- 
prise of lighting it, and has shared the common 
benefit. The second enterprise formed by this 
brotherhood was the floating of a bank in the village. 
The saloonkeeper had been the banker, and the work- 
ing men of the town had been obliged to pay him a 
heavy tax for the cashing of checks. When the men 
of the Presbyterian church proposed a bank they got 
the allegiance for the first time of the Polish Catho- 
lics, who voted solidly, with their priest at their head, 
in favor of the bank at the popular meeting called 
by the brotherhood. Both these enterprises were 
on the margin of the town's needs. These older 
citizens studied the community as a whole, and 
served all by supplying those needs which were 
most felt by the working people and the young 
people of the town. 

Immigrants are Marginal People. The immi- 
grant is marginal to American communities. What- 
ever is done for him, since he helps the community 
to earn their living, will benefit the whole commu- 
nity. He has come to stay. His life is big with 
future possibilities. They who would minister to 
the whole community must minister to him. This 
subject is itself great enough for a volume, but I 
will indicate briefly the forms of ministry to the 
immigrant which are adapted to his marginal 
needs. 



The Principle of Service 171 

A Welcome to Italians. It should be a service of 
Americans to foreigners. Important as the foreign 
speech is, the most important thing of all is the 
American welcome. Therefore, whatever is done 
must be done in American courtesy to newcomers 
from abroad. This spirit is finely expressed in the 
celebration of the Italian national holiday by a 
Pennsylvania town. Around Grove City is a large 
Italian population of miners. At dawn of the na- 
tional holiday of Italy, August 8th, the town was 
awakened by the playing of a band and tumultuous 
explosion of fireworks. Thus began the long day 
of music, games, and illumination. By invitation 
of the President of Grove City College, Dr. Isaac 
C. Ketler, these foreigners used for the day, with 
great respect, affection, and self-restraint, the col- 
lege campus, the most beautiful park in the neigh- 
borhood. This illustrates the principle. These men 
will always feel welcome, and will find themselves at 
home in the community in which the leading citizens 
have given them such a welcome. 

Teaching Aliens English. The language of the 
country should be taught to the foreigner. The 
Young Men's Christian Association does this suc- 
cessfully, and the book by Dr. Peter Roberts is to 
be commended as a quick and valuable method of 
" Teaching English to Foreigners." 

Evangelization of Foreigners. The evangeliza- 
tion of foreigners, when they have been welcomed 
and taught the English language, has great possi- 
bilities. This is a Christian land to them. They 



172 The Church of the Open Country 

easily learn, if there be those to teach them, that 
religion means something nobler and finer in a free 
country than they have known it in a government of 
compulsion. The swift growth in the. number of 
Italian churches throughout the country is sufficient 
evidence. In fifteen years they have increased from 
five to over three hundred, and the most of these 
have come into existence in the last five years of the 
fifteen. The success of this work is due to the fact 
that the foreigner is generally a marginal man, to 
whom Protestant Christianity has extraordinary 
value. No greater service can be rendered by Prot- 
estant churches to future generations than to Ameri- 
canize the foreigners and lead them to Christ. 

Variety of Activities. Social service must, there- 
fore, understand the modes of life of the people who 
are on the edge of the community. It must be 
sympathetic with children, with adolescents, with 
working men, and with " renters." For this reason 
recreation is a great element in marginal service, 
because recreation has the value for working men 
that higher education has for the well-to-do. In- 
dustrial education is a principle of marginal service, 
because training in getting a living is a big factor 
in the life of working people. But the important 
thing is the principle of selection, which guided the 
Master himself, the principle, namely, that to serve 
the whole community one must minister to the peo- 
ple who are in jeopardy, and enable those to stand 
who are likely to fall. One must find the lost and 
restore them. He must heal the sick. Thus he will 



The Principle of Service 173 

play upon the heart-strings of the community. He 
will command the social instinct. He will turn on 
the currents of electric sympathies which will be- 
come his resources, and on his side will be the whole 
power of social organization which controls the 
every-day action of all the people of the whole 
community. 



LEADERSHIP OF THE COMMUNITY 



Any consideration of the problem of rural life that leaves out of 
account the function and the possibilities of the Church, and of 
related institutions, would be grossly inadequate. 

This is not because in the last analysis the country-life problem 
is a moral problem, or that in the best development of the individual 
the great motives and results are religious and spiritual, but because 
from the pure sociological point of view the Church is fundamentally 
a necessary institution in country life. In a peculiar way the Church 
is intimately related to the agricultural industry. The work and the 
life of the farm are closely bound together, and the institutions of 
the country react on that life and on one another more intimately 
than they do in the city. This gives the rural Church a position of 
peculiar difficulty and one of unequaled opportunity. The time has 
arrived when the Church must take a larger leadership, both as an 
institution and through its pastors, in the social reorganization of 
rural life. 

The great spiritual needs of the country community just at present 
are higher personal and community ideals. Rural people need to have 
an aspiration for the highest possible development of the community. 
There must be an ambition on the part of the people themselves 
constantly to progress in all of those things that make the community 
life wholesome, satisfying, educative, and complete. There must be 
a desire to develop a permanent environment for the country boy 
and girl of which they will become passionately fond. As a pure 
matter of education, the countryman must learn to love the country 
and to have an intellectual appreciation of it. More than this, the 
spiritual nature of the individual must be kept thoroughly alive. His 
personal ideals of conduct and ambition must be cultivated. 

Of course the Church has an indispensable function as a con- 
servator of morals. But from the social point of view, it is to hold 
aloft the torch of personal and community idealism. It must be a 
leader in the attempt to idealize country life. — Report of the Country 
Life Commission 



I 7 6 



VIII 
LEADERSHIP OF THE COMMUNITY 

Reasons for Lack of Leadership. There are rea- 
sons for lack of leadership in the community. The 
first of these is the leveling of the country popula- 
tion by the sifting out of all modes of getting a 
living except farming. Country people tend to be 
reduced to one economic experience. It is true that 
in only a few communities has this process been 
completed, but in all the effect of it is apparent in the 
growing consciousness of farm work rather than 
social life. The thought of farm people about their 
own life is purely industrial. It is a thought of 
work rather than of association, and the work is 
agriculture. 

Strange Interpretation of Democracy. It is char- 
acteristic of working people and farmers that they 
interpret democracy in terms of level and uniform 
equality. Farmers especially are loath to admit that 
there are any leaders in their community. One of 
the most puzzling obstacles in the way of a country 
minister is the assent of all his people to the proposi- 
tion " We have no leaders here." It is a theory 
they have about democracy that the ideal condition 
is one of equality in which no man stands out as 

177 



178 The Church of the Open Country 

greater than his neighbor. It is the " make-believe " 
by which they play the game of life. 

No Common Socializing Experience. A deeper 
cause of this condition is the lack of socializing ex- 
perience in the country. Rural communities are con- 
trasted to urban or town communities by going 
through the round of the year without any notable 
event or celebration unless they assemble in the 
town or village. A community made up of working 
farmers generally celebrates no anniversary, and 
keeps no great holiday. This is a very curious nega- 
tion, especially for American people ; but in a coun- 
try community the Fourth of July awakens no local 
spirit, Thanksgiving brings no grateful response, 
Christmas day is celebrated, if at all, in the house- 
hold alone, and Easter is not regularly a great day 
in the church. Of course there are exceptions. I 
am describing only the prevailing condition. In the 
absence of customary meetings of the countryside, 
it is natural that leadership should not be evolved. 
The community itself, that is to say, the people who 
live within a convenient team-haul of one another, 
do not have those accustomed contacts that would 
distinguish one above another. If there is a meet- 
ing in the course of the year to which all the fami- 
lies are attracted, it is probably in a town, and it 
generally exploits the country community while con- 
tributing nothing to it. The circus in a near-by city 
is attended by every one. The county fair at the 
county seat is very popular. Such as these are an- 
nual events on which all attend, but their influence 




SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN TOWN 



Leadership of the Community 179 

is to drain and to weaken rather than to enrich and 
distinguish the country community. 

No Natural Meeting-places. It is very strange, 
too, that with the closing of the old country stores 
away from the railroad, the country community has 
lost its only places of informal meeting. The men of 
the community have no natural meeting-places. 
Their leisure is not attracted by any magnet within 
the community. The women may be somewhat more 
fortunate, for their church connections take the 
form of sewing circles and Ladies' Aid societies, 
but the men and boys are by their work drawn 
apart from one another. Their sport and recreation, 
so far as the community goes, is solitary. Hunting 
or fishing does not tend to produce leadership but 
rather to undermine it. There can be no persons 
known to a whole population except through con- 
tinued leisurely and voluntary association. Out of 
such mingling, dependent not on compulsion, but 
on free and ingenuous life together, leadership 
is developed. Whatever common experiences there 
are in the course of the year will give character 
to the leaders who exist in the community. At 
the places of informal association these gatherings 
with the men who there assemble will continue to 
describe the leaders who stand before the commu- 
nity as a whole. 

Results of Surveys in Pennsylvania and Illinois. 
The Surveys made by the Department of Church 
and Country Life in Pennsylvania and in Illinois in 
1909 showed a surprising tendency of country com- 



180 The Church of the Open Country 

munities to be unprogressive. In fifty communities 
there were found only two conspicuous individuals 
who were acknowledged by the farmers about them 
to be leaders. Neither of these individuals is a 
farmer. No community was found in which the 
farmers would acknowledge that a farmer was a 
leader among them. The two leaders in these fifty 
communities were, one of them a schoolmaster, one 
of them an old soldier and politician. 

Leadership is Denied. Under these conditions 
individual life withers as leadership is denied. The 
man who attempts to live as the equal of all other 
men will cooperate with none, for cooperation 
means subjection. His ideal of a man, to which he 
conforms his actions, is that of an independent per- 
sonality, owning land, paying his debts, and " caring 
for nobody." This is not the highest ideal of a 
human being. I do not say that it is universal 
among farmers, but I believe it is the ideal which 
prevails among those populations in which the sift- 
ing process is removing from the farm all other 
modes of getting a living except farming. 

The Residue Degenerate. The tendency of this 
ideal is toward degeneracy on the part of many, 
brilliancy on the part of a few, and discouragement 
among the greater number. Those communities 
which assent to this ideal of personality, which deny 
leadership and refuse to allow distinction among 
their own number, shortly lose the more brilliant 
members of the community. Boys and girls who 
are restless for distinction and aim at leadership 







£ 5 



Leadership of the Community 181 

leave the community and go off to school or to the- 
city, and find there a truer expression of their own 
ideas. Those who cannot go, because they cannot 
sell their land, remain in the community, their men 
have a vote, and the members of their families " are 
as good as anybody." The result in their case is 
degeneration. They cannot live the same life as the 
average persons in the community. They tend to a 
lower level and their failure to maintain their posi- 
tion is discouraging. In the case of some members of 
these families, the result is insanity and suicide. 
One cause of this condition seems to be the inability 
of these people to maintain the ideal to which they 
and their fathers assented, that is, a respectable 
equality with all other men, especially with all in 
their community. To fall behind in the race seems 
to them intolerable. 

Church Should Develop Leadership. The duty 
of the country Church, therefore, is to utilize the 
occasions which make leaders. These occasions 
arise in the regular meetings of the whole popula- 
tion. For this purpose Sunday preaching services 
are most influential, but are not sufficient, because 
the Sunday preaching service is itself based on the 
wrong ideal when it is made the only means to 
these ends. It presumes that all men are alike. The 
Church should provide an annual gathering of the 
whole population. 

Jamesburg Anniversary. One church, in James- 
burg, New Jersey, which has such a meeting, calls it 
" The Anniversary." Nobody knows what it com- 



1 82 The Church of the Open Country 

memorates. Its origin is forgotten, but its value 
throughout the years is very great. It fills a large 
place in the community life. It brings home once a 
year the older members of the community. It 
arouses local pride in the success of every son of 
the community who has done well. It stimulates the 
aspirations of the young, and above all, it warms up 
the isolation of the individual with a sense of belong- 
ing to a distinguished company. 

Reunions and Old Home Week. An old church 
in Wassaic, Dutchess County, New York, had a re- 
cent reunion, to which a visit or a letter was secured 
from every living son of the community. It gave 
to the members of a discouraged country church 
and to the remainders of families living in the coun- 
tryside a sense of distinction, of being a part of 
the great world, which they had not had before. 
The Old Home Week in New England is a fine ex- 
pression of this annual meeting of the community. 
It is of special value for the older places which have 
a departed population. It calls them home or brings 
from them a letter or a contribution. It marks the 
historic places in the community with some memorial 
in granite or in bronze. It brings distinguished 
speakers to a great open-air gathering and it seats 
the whole countryside together at the table. 

Religious Festivals. But above all, the country 
community should celebrate the great holidays of 
the year. Charles Kingsley has a fine passage on the 
value of the Church year to the Church of England 
congregations. It brings before them all the round 



Leadership of the Community 183 

of human experience. In America the celebrations 
of the country community should not be those of 
European saints, but should be the anniversaries of 
American sentiment and experience. The Church 
year should begin with a gathering at Christmas 
time in celebration of the Lord's birth. Gifts made 
by the whole community to the children, in which no 
child should be omitted, no matter what his religious 
belief, can at this time bring all together. The 
writer remembers with tenderness and gratitude the 
day when as a child he first recited a few verses in a 
Christmas dialogue on the church platform. It was 
a profound and lasting religious experience. At this 
time, also, the celebration can take the form of song. 
Christmas Appeal Universal. Choruses, can- 
tatas, or even in some communities an oratorio, are 
possible at Christmas which would be unattainable 
at any other time. It is the season of the year 
at which country people have the most leisure. The 
rehearsals may be made occasions of the highest 
social value, but above all, the Christmas celebra- 
tion should be of such a character that none shall be 
left out. Neither the Catholic nor the Jew, if they 
be present in the community, should be excluded. 
There is something about the Christmas celebration 
which appeals to all mankind. It must be made a 
time for enlarging the countryman's idea of him- 
self. By the play of sentiment the individual man 
must have his eyes opened beyond the horizon of his 
own farm and his own family to the whole com- 
munity and the whole human family. 



184 The Church of the Open Country 

Easter and Immortality. Similarly the celebra- 
tion of Easter is favorable for the development of 
religious leadership. Country people generally be- 
lieve in the resurrection and in immortality. The 
country minister who is adequate to the religious 
leadership of his people ought to know how to coin 
this universal belief in immortality into a great cele- 
bration at Easter time. Printed aids are furnished 
with some fulness by religious agencies, but it is far 
better to depend upon local possibilities and to de- 
velop the day in song, in the decoration of the 
church, and in the general celebration of the sea- 
son itself in such way as to minister religiously to 
the community. 

Easter and Evangelism. It seems to the writer 
that the Easter season is the best time for evangelism. 
The approach of this sacred day, whose tradition en- 
ters so deeply into the belief in immortality, should 
be made holy. Amusement, recreation, and ordi- 
nary social life should be discouraged, and the fruit- 
age of the whole .year in religious sentiment should 
be harvested through individual expressions. Im- 
mortality is at the opposite pole from social feeling. 
Our hopes of immortal life are personal. Therefore 
at Easter time the preacher should devote himself 
to the development of the individuals among his 
people. Conversion should at this time result from 
the general work throughout the year. 

Community's Objective Determines Type of 
Leader. The essential thing is the spirit of develop- 
ing the community's own life in its own terms. The 



Leadership of the Community 185 

value of all this will show itself in the rise of lead- 
ers among the people themselves. As before indi- 
cated, the leadership will be of like character with 
the means by which that leadership is produced. If 
the means be religious, ethical, and social, the lead- 
ers who shall arise will be devout, moral, and popu- 
lar men. If the meetings of the people are purely 
for business purposes, the leaders of the town will 
be concerned alone with its business prosperity. It 
is the business of the minister and the teacher in the 
country community so to agitate the community and 
so to unite it that the leaders of the community 
shall be men of conscience, of intelligence, and of a 
progressive spirit. If the loafers of the town are the 
only ones who have opportunity for frequent asso- 
ciation, then the loafers will select the leaders. But 
if the regular meetings of the town are bright, in- 
tellectual, and popular; if the enjoyment is furnished 
by music, by dramatic expression, by the remem- 
brance of the past of the community, and by plan- 
ning for the future, then the leadership of the 
town will flow from these sources, and the common 
mind of the community will demand and will secure 
those personalities who shall stand before all the 
people to accomplish that for which the whole people 
aspire. 

Revivals and Leadership. Evangelism creates 
leaders. Men's souls are saved that they may be- 
come priests and prophets of God. All the means 
described above for the cultivation of leaders have 
been practised by ministers in the country, but are 



1 86 The Church of the Open Country 

dependent upon the discovery of devoted men and 
women through their thorough conversion and re- 
generation. If the community has a few who give 
their lives for the Kingdom, it may train them in 
these ways for larger service. But above all, the 
annual pilgrimage to the valley of decision must 
bring men's souls before God. Persuade those 
whose heart God has touched to confess their faith 
in him. The best times for this revival of religion 
are in the late fall and the early spring. Com- 
munities differ in this, but some period is especially 
suitable, and at this time the great and holy day 
of decision should be made the first of all holidays. 
Every energy of the Church should be turned toward 
the conversion of souls. 

All Organizations Have Symbols. All societies 
are united under some kind of a symbol. Armies 
march behind banners, and because their organiza- 
tion is artificial and intense, they have numerous 
standards, guides, and emblems. But natural so- 
cieties cannot get on without the same service. Peo- 
ple rally very often around a symbol which serves 
the mere purpose of assembling them, with more en- 
thusiasm than for the purposes of their common 
life. Men will sometimes do more for the flag than 
they will do for what the flag represents. Neverthe- 
less, the flag serves a purpose in uniting them, and 
this is itself of great value. 

Community Symbol is the Church. The coun- 
try community, like every other society, is united 
in a symbol, and in the country this symbol is the 



Leadership of the Community 187 

church. The spire rising above the trees, by the 
roadside, serves as a pivot of rural interest. The 
weekly meeting has varying meanings, with the 
change of ministers and with the variation 
of their themes, but it has an unchanging value 
for the community as a place to assemble and as a 
token that the people are one. 

Worship is for Everybody. The flag of the 
country community is the church. This is the com- 
mon center around which all may rally. Its doc- 
trines and its membership are for a limited number, 
but its worship is for everybody. The sound of its 
bell comes to all hearts, and the influence of its unit- 
ing power is upon the whole countryside. The old- 
time ministers were statesmen and they held their 
churches up against the whole community. We 
have too frequently forgotten this meaning of the 
church, as a token of the people's common life. It 
is none the less real, and it can be restored. 

Likeness Attracts Individuals. Consciousness of 
kind is recognized by sociologists as an organiz- 
ing force. Those who respond to common stimuli 
become aware of their resemblances and their dif- 
ferences. They recognize a certain oneness, and im- 
mediately a society is born. It may be a great one 
or a small one, but the foundations of societies are 
laid when men become aware that they are like unto 
one another and different from the rest. 

Doak Organized Differing Communities. When 
Samuel Doak, a graduate of Princeton College, 
came on horseback through East Tennessee to Nola 



1 88 The Church of the Open Country 

Chucky River, he stopped in the woods to inquire 
the way, of men who were chopping. They learned 
that he was a minister, and asked him to preach. 
So sitting on his horse as he was, he preached a ser- 
mon to the assembled pioneers. They gathered 
about him and constrained him to remain as their 
pastor. This was about 1795. He began his minis- 
try, and at the same time laid the foundations of 
Washington College, the earliest college to be 
founded west of the Alleghanies. For a few years 
his people were conscious of their kinship to Dr. 
Doak. But shortly a sense of difference arose, and 
he felt constrained to go further and unite himself 
with the people of Tusculum, fifteen miles south- 
westward, where he again built up a country com- 
munity and where again he founded a college, which 
became Tusculum College. These two communities 
were organized as churches. The church was the 
symbol of the community's life. These churches 
still remain, each intensely conscious of its kinship 
to the people in its own community, and having a 
sense of difference from the people in the other 
community founded by Samuel Doak. So intense 
was this consciousness of difference that when the 
pioneer preacher died, and they carried his body to 
be buried at Washington College, it is said that 
very few of the first settlers came out to pay respect 
to his remains. 

Churches Recognize Social Divisions. Worship 
is the truest expression we have of conciousness of 
kind. In America, where there are no state 



Leadership of the Community 189 

churches, the worship of God is the freest common 
function in which all the people are represented. 
It expresses, therefore, with infallible accuracy, the 
consciousness of differences and of resemblances in 
the mind of the people. For in the hurried and 
changing reorganization of recent years the churches 
have harbored the social feelings of the people. We 
have come to have " rich men's churches," " work- 
ing men's churches," " student pastors," " sailors' 
Bethels," " slum chapels," and other Church or- 
ganizations which are symbols of the social divisions 
in which the people live. 

Color Causes Divisions. The most striking ex- 
pression of consciousness of kind, as reflected in the 
Church, is in the South. Before the war the Negroes 
worshiped with their masters, but when they were 
freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, they went 
out to build their own churches and the South has 
to-day churches for the white, and churches for the 
Negro, in all its States. The fact that this division 
represents the feelings of all the people of the South 
is evidenced by this, that the Negro churches are 
very largely erected with the white man's money. 
The black trace their consciousness of kinship in 
accordance with color and racial history by the 
worship of the Lord's Day. 

Church Must Recognize Fundamental Social 
Feelings. There is, of course, much to be lamented 
in this social division of the people. I am anxious 
here only to trace it and to recognize clearly the 
place which worship has in social organization. 



190 The Church of the Open Country 

We will not be able to build the community Church, 
unless we recognize clearly the principle by which 
churches serve the people, in expressing fundamental 
social feelings. The Church is the symbol of the 
social life of the whole people. 

Minister Must Know Community's Sentiments. 
The minister's need of social knowledge is most evi- 
dent at this point. Unless he knows how the people 
feel, and makes himself the expression of that feel- 
ing, he cannot lead them. For instance, in New 
England the proprieties require that a man's sins 
be not discussed at his funeral. No matter how 
bad he may have been, the community does not 
need to be told of it on that occasion. It is a part 
of the decorum rooted in the feelings of all New 
England people that the dead should be decently 
laid away, and that something be said appropriate to 
the occasion. I remember the comment of two 
typical Yankees, made in reference to the funeral 
addresses by pastors over departed friends. In 
either case the man who died had his faults, and 
in both cases the minister had seen fit to deal fa- 
miliarly with these faults. In so doing he had put 
himself out of sympathy with the community. He 
lost his power to act for them all, and weakened his 
influence. 

Pastor Who Unites Community. Some farm- 
ing communities have expressed themselves so per- 
fectly in the life of the minister, and he has repre- 
sented with such precision their common life, that 
his days have been passed, even down to old age, with 



Leadership of the Community 191 

them. The Rev. J. L. Bradclock came to the church 
at Winnebago, Illinois, at forty-eight years of age. 
The end of his pastorate came in his ninety-first 
year. Forty-two years he represented that commu- 
nity, and so intimate was the sympathy between him 
and them, so truly did he use the symbol of the com- 
munity, that the whole population at the end of his 
pastorate was represented in its membership, save 
two or three families; and the streams of life of 
the households, the children, the young people, the 
women, and the men in their respective organiza- 
tions flowed through that church. Such an instance 
expresses the satisfaction of the community in the 
church and its leader. 

A Woman Unites Divergent Classes. I have 
known a woman to embody the life of the commu- 
nity. She was endowed with rare and intense social 
sympathy. Magnetic in personality and possessed 
of ample means, she compelled the allegiance of all. 
Those whom she united in one experience of com- 
munity feeling were divergent from one another in 
the widest degrees. The very old and the very 
young, the very rich and proud, the very poor and 
discouraged, found in her an experience of sym- 
pathy with their condition, and through her, sym- 
pathized with one another. For fifteen years her 
life was theirs, and their needs were her daily 
thought. But the medium of this influence was the 
country church, in which she was a member, which 
they all attended. The various organizations in this 
country church touched the lives of all the people in 



192 The Church of the Open Country 

the community, and in all these organizations her 
influence was felt. 

Illinois Example. In an Illinois town, in which 
I am deeply interested, the country church, out in 
the open fields, has been the center of great interest. 
The schools have been consolidated alongside the 
church. The holidays of the year are celebrated 
under the leadership of the church people. A near- 
by abandoned neighborhood in which there has been 
no preaching for many years has been annexed to 
the parish, and the whole community is united in 
one house of worship. Yet in this community the 
most influential men deny that they are leaders. 
They recognize that in order to lead they must ap- 
pear to follow. There is no country squire among 
them. They instinctively feel that if any man took 
on the airs of leadership, he would at once lose all 
his followers. For such a situation the country 
Church is the available symbol, which furnishes a 
medium of exchange of influences. It embodies the 
unity of the countryside under cover of which all 
these things can be done by a few families, indeed, 
very often by just one household in which is pos- 
sessed the power of leadership. The standard which 
all follow is held high, but the standard-bearer is 
not seen. 

Magnify the Church in the Community. If the 
Church is the symbol of the community, it follows 
that to train people in community ways one must 
magnify the Church. There is needed to-day a great 
Protestant movement for reinterpreting religious 



Leadership of the Community 193 

life in terms of the Church. It must be broad- 
minded and tolerant in the truest sense, but never- 
theless it will be an organizing of Christian senti- 
ment and a reassembling of Christian people in 
congregations which serve communities. If we ever 
come to have the country organized in communities 
and the life of individuals inspiring the deeds in their 
communities, we will inevitably have the Church as 
the token of the community's oneness, standing out 
in the open country with its people about it. 

Weakness in Individualism. The evident weak- 
ness of the present-day Protestant sentiment is its 
individualism. Solitary living has given us a soli- 
tary religion. We have been ruled by pioneer men 
and pioneer standards, but pioneer days are gone 
forever. Our evangelism has been content to tell 
salvation to the individual soul and lay no bondage 
upon that soul for service to the community. We 
have worked in our churches and Sunday-schools for 
the regeneration of the youth and have had nothing 
for them of a regenerate sort when it was done. 
The result is that the Sunday-school terminates its 
influence over most of the children at about fifteen 
years of age. But ideals are needed to take up the 
life of our young people or of those converted and 
harness them to the great task of the world. 

Foreign Mission Ideal. Within the past twenty 
years the foreign mission propaganda has furnished 
such an ideal and has possessed the minds of the 
young men and women in the schools and colleges. 
It expresses itself in the formula " Religion means 



194 The Church of the Open Country 

God, myself, and the world." We must have a new 
ideal more intensive than this and nearer home. 
For the most of men cannot lay their soul under 
bondage to the whole world. The Christian man 
can live in his community, but not one in a hundred 
is capable of practising the "world idea," and if 
the " world idea " is to be of influence among the 
home-dwelling folk, it must come to them through the 
distributing center of a community institution. The 
country Church is necessary for sustaining the great 
project of evangelizing the world. 

Church Should Dominate Individual and Com- 
munity. Christian sentiment must be reshaped and 
Christian people must be reenlisted in the interest of 
the Church as a specific expression of the kingdom 
of God. We need change no vital principle of the 
Protestant heritage. We have been unfaithful to this 
heritage in our diffuse and diluted individualism. 
We need stern, vigorous reorganization of life, 
which will express itself in churches so strong as to 
dominate the individual life and so extensively or- 
ganized as to penetrate the whole community with 
their influence. 

Saved to Serve. The trouble we have to over- 
come is a weak, good-natured conception that the 
Christian is saved by certain emotional experiences 
he has had, and the Church is no more business of 
his. He is to live a good life and avoid scandal, and 
when necessary he is to be waited on by Church or- 
ganizations, sustained by other people, and held 
together by those who are more narrow and more 



Leadership of the Community 195 

traditional in their type than he. But the strong 
personalities of the world, the literary minds, the 
persons who love nature and " can worship in the 
woods," the esthetic souls who need the means of 
culture, these conceive that having received the mes- 
sage of salvation which the Church has to give them, 
they have done all that is taught in Christianity and 
owe no further duty. For this state of mind the 
traditional evangelism and the customary preaching 
are to blame. Individual souls have been over- 
dosed with a gospel of their personal importance. 
Protestantism has become centrifugal. It has been 
diluted with a false idealism. There is no organiz- 
ing principle in very much of it, and a great deal of 
the individualism of our time, the selfish culture of 
learned men, the masterful independence and ruth- 
less loneliness of some rich men, have been extreme 
results of this false idealism. Though they are ex- 
treme results, they are logical and inevitable. We 
cannot preach an unmodified doctrine of personal 
salvation without having these results. 

Enlist for Community Betterment. The needed 
teaching in our time is that of the organized com- 
munity. Christian people and other well-meaning 
folk must all assemble as the leaders and must be 
enlisted as the workers in community betterment. 
They must be taught to recognize clearly the bounds 
of their community. They must come to see how 
fully their own lives and the lives of their children 
and kindred are spent in that little environment. 
They must make of it a republic to be ruled in 



196 The Church of the Open Country 

sanitary respects, in all matters of beauty and in 
the recreative life, in the interest of developing 
personality and of the unfolding social life. In the 
service of this little republic to the influence of the 
Church will be the dominating element. If Christian 
churches are not the community centers, then new 
churches will arise. This great task will be done. 

Denmark's Example. The progress of the coun- 
try life movement in Denmark illustrates this tend- 
ency of community organization to build churches. 
The Church has been organized and new structures 
have been erected wherever the people have been as- 
sembled in working and serviceable units. They 
have needed a symbol of their oneness. Although the 
regeneration of Denmark was carried on by the 
schoolmasters, who wrought out its details and bore 
the burden of its routine, both the beginning and 
the ending of it were the work of ministers of re- 
ligion. It was inspired by Bishop Grundtvig and 
his associates ; and when it was matured it expressed 
itself in church building and church organization. 
The seed of it and the flower of it were religious, 
but the stalk and stem and branch were educational. 

Devotion to Community. Therefore the sum of 
the whole matter is this. The Christian man or 
woman in America, especially in the open country, 
must learn to devote himself to the community, and 
to this end must magnify the Church as the commu- 
nity center. A new formula will control his life. 
He shall say, " Religion consists, for me, of God in 
the community, and in the world." This cannot 



Leadership of the Community 197 

be done without magnifying the Church, but atten- 
tion must not be first of all upon the Church. A 
selfish Church that seeks the obedience of men and 
demands their craven submission cannot do this 
work, but the Church which preaches the gospel of 
common service in a common local task, and offers 
its own house and its own walls and its own minister 
for this use will build itself and will be enlarged 
in the process of serving the community. 

Rural Life Out of Repair. To review, therefore : 
country life is out of repair. Rural institutions have 
been breaking down under the influences of specula- 
tion in land. The causes of this dilapidation of 
social life in the country are transitional. They 
will soon pass away. Religious people are all sum- 
moned, therefore, to provide for the new day of 
organized farming which is to come. It is for them 
to idealize it, and to express its spirit in a new con- 
ception of life. This conception of life is to be 
expressed in the Church, the center of the com- 
munity. 

Four Phases and Types. Country life has passed 
through three or four phases leading to maturity. 
Each of these phases has been under the domina- 
tion of a new type of men; the solitary farmer, the 
household farmer, the speculative farmer, and the 
organized farmer. Each of these has built his own 
community, centering it in a church of his own 
sort. These churches and communities have been so 
unlike one another that what is thought good in the 
one is thought wrong in the other. In the eyes of 



198 The Church of the Open Country 

the pioneer the warm social ways of the household 
farmer are sinful. Yet these successive stages of 
community life are cumulative. All that was good 
in the earlier stage is retained until the later ones, 
and in the day of organized farming, which is dawn- 
ing, the methods and even the personalities of pio- 
neer, of household, and of speculative farming will 
have their place. 

Central Place of the Church. The task of organ- 
izing the Church to respond to the scientific agricul- 
ture of our day is exceedingly intricate. It will 
be a highly organized and sympathetic institution. 
It can be no less than the center of the whole com- 
munity. It cannot afford that any part of the 
community be outside its influence. For this reason 
modern Christian people are craving the federation 
of the churches in order that the Church may truly 
reflect the life of a cooperating and uniting people. 

Reorganized Country Schools. The schools in 
the country need to be reorganized to serve the needs 
of Christian communities. The principle of this 
reconstruction is the teaching of science to the 
farmer as a preparation for country life. Not 
merely to make the farmer rich is the motive in the 
new schools in the country, but while enriching him 
to win him to a new rural idealism and to make 
of him- a new type of countryman. This is the 
principle on which the schools in the country must 
be rebuilt. For this purpose the centralizing and 
consolidating of the common schools is necessary. 
Not in all places, for there will remain many one- 



Leadership of the Community 199 

room country schools which serve their purpose in 
the corners of the land. But the system of schools 
in the country must be reorganized on the radius 
of the team-haul; the children assembled in large 
groups for social intercourse, and for constructive 
moral and spiritual culture. 

Spirit of Cooperation. Farming is essentially 
cooperative. Those farmers have survived through 
the recent period of change who inherited from their 
ancestors the practise of cooperation, and they alone 
have survived. The uncooperative farming which 
prevailed throughout the country has suffered 
severely under the influence of speculation in land. 
The home, the Church, and the school in the country, 
where unprotected by cooperation, have been under- 
mined by the speculative process of the past twenty 
years. The growth of cooperative customs among 
farmers is, therefore, to be encouraged by the 
churches for self-protection and for building up 
country communities immune to the changes in the 
value of land or of farm products. Country life 
will come into possession of itself only through 
federation of the farmers in their own interest. 

Federation of Churches. This cooperation in 
economic life is the true preparation for the federa- 
tion of the churches. The material and other re- 
lations of life must all become organic and one be- 
fore the symbols of the people's life which are in the 
churches reorganize. The Heavenly Father is at 
work among the people, feeding, clothing, enriching, 
and organizing them, and he cares more for the wel- 



200 The Church of the Open Country 

fare of the people than for the survival of the 
churches. He is shepherd of the flock, and if he 
must change the fold, he will not forget his care of 
the sheep. Wherever the flock is reassembled it 
will be easy to build a new fold. Wherever the people 
are cooperative in their life and organize in com- 
munities, the federation of churches will surely 
follow. 

Pauperism Abolished. The new prosperity which 
has come in the country must be trained by com- 
munity organization, first of all, to care for the 
poor. Pauperism must be excluded from the com- 
munity. It is impossible to have any real prosperity 
while any number in the neighborhood is in want. 
It is impossible for intelligence to be real and for 
culture to be genuine while ignorance and destitution 
are near at hand. The country community must be 
made the clearing-house for the protection and the 
sustaining of those who are without land and with- 
out productive tools. Moreover, we are learning 
new methods of distributing the wealth of the peo- 
ple in the interest of the whole people, and these 
methods are religious. They are already a part of 
the work of the churches. It is important for re- 
ligious people to use the democratic methods, born 
of their own necessities, by the transformation of 
pew-renting and other older customs into the demo- 
cratic support of the church by small regular con- 
tributions from all. The vital character of the 
churches is shown in this struggle for democracy in 
giving. 



Leadership of the Community 201 

Ministry to Marginal People. The principle of 
social service is the care of the poor. During our 
lifetime there will be men without land and with- 
out tools in America and probably in increasing- 
proportions. While we are discussing the far-dis- 
tant future when poverty is to be abolished, it be- 
comes us to take measures for its repression now in 
the country community, where pauperism can be 
abolished. The principle of social service is the 
ministry of those who have means and leadership 
to the people on the edge of the community, to those 
who are in jeopardy, and whose hold upon social 
life is constantly in danger. To serve them is to 
serve all. This is the principle of selection, by 
which social service shall be rendered with ease and 
with power. 

Church Community Symbol. Finally there is no 
symbol of all this spirit save the Church. If the 
people prosper, it will show itself in the Church. If 
the people are mean, the Church will infallibly repre- 
sent their sordid spirit. If the people are demo- 
cratic, the Church will be large-minded. If the 
people are narrow, their churches will write upon 
the sky the story of their bigotry. The Church is, 
therefore, the emblem of the social life of the peo- 
ple. It should be understood as a means of knowing 
social conditions. It is the sensitive register which 
they who work for the welfare of mankind may 
use. The Church is the vehicle of ministry unto all 
the community. Its power to inspire and to see 
is beyond the power of any other institution. 



202 The Church of the Open Country 

Ministry to Common People. For in the life of 
the whole people dwells the life of the Almighty 
Father. He cares for them and moves upon them 
and leads them on through the years of history to 
his own destined ends. They who are poor and 
whose welfare depends upon the life of the people as 
a whole believe in God. Among them there is no 
doubt, and he who would meet with God must meet 
him in the life of common folk, who depend for their 
welfare and for the expression of their faith upon 
the Church at the center of the community. 



QUESTIONS AND REFERENCES 

SUGGESTIONS FOR USING THE QUESTIONS 

The questions below have been prepared to suggest a few 
lines of discussion that may be pursued by the average leader 
of a study class. It must be evident to all that no set of 
questions can be prepared that will satisfy all leaders. Both 
the caliber of the leader and the character of the group will 
vary in every local church. Even persons who have had ex- 
tensive experience in leading classes will probably find these 
questions suggestive, and it is hoped that those who are just 
beginning will receive much help. Few fact questions have 
been included because they can be easily supplied by any 
leader from the paragraph headings. 

Questions marked with the asterisk (*) should arouse 
more than ordinary thought and discussion. 

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I 

Aim : To Understand the Principal Causes of Rural 
Deterioration 

i. If you are living in an urban community, in what 
respects are you dependent upon the agricultural com- 
munities ? 

2.* Is the prosperity of agriculture vital to the prosperity 
of the nation? Give reasons. 

3.* Do you believe that the prosperity of the farmers is 
of greater importance than the prosperity of the in- 
dustrial enterprises? State reasons. 

4. Why have so many young people gone from the farm 
to the towns and cities? 

5. Do you believe they have really benefited themselves 
by the change, and in what respects? 

6. Describe the four types of rural life in the United 
States. 

7. Which type is the most evident in our country to-day? 

8. What do you consider the strength and weakness of 
each type? 

9. Which do you consider the best type in the past, and 
why? 

203 



204 The Church of the Open Country 

10. Would you wish to restore that type if it were 

possible? 
ii. Which section of the United States is deteriorating 

most, and why? 
12. Which of the phases of rural deterioration is the most 

disastrous ? 
13.* Is soil exhaustion a greater menace to agricultural 

welfare than speculation? 
14* Do you think the fundamental cause for rural decay 

is economic, social, or religious? 
15. Sum up the principal causes of rural deterioration in 

the order of their importance. 
16.* What assistance can people in towns and cities give 

toward the upbuilding of the rural community? 

17. What can scientific farming do to improve conditions? 

18. What can the rural inhabitants do to improve con- 
ditions ? 

19.* What can the churches do to improve country life? 

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 

CHAPTER I 

Anderson, The Country Town. I, III, V-IX. 

Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, XII. 

Bailey, The Country Life Movement, 14-43. 

Beard, The Story of John Frederic Oberlin, II, III. 

Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress, I. 

Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Problem, I. 

Hartt, "The Regeneration of Rural New England," The 

Outlook, March 3, 10, 17, 31, 1900. 
Hyde, " Impending Paganism in New England," The Forum, 

June, 1892. 
Plunkett, The Rural Life Problem in the United States, 

III. IV. 
Roads, Rural Christendom, III. 
Strong, The Challenge of the City, I. 
Strong, The New Era, VIII. 

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II 

Aim: To Show the Intimate Relation of the Church to 
the Community 

I. Have you ever seen a prosperous agricultural com- 
munity without a church? 



Questions and References 205 

2. Do you think people in the country are more religious 
than those in towns and cities? 

3 * Has the man who is in touch with the forces of na- 
ture any advantages in strengthening his religious 
faith over the dweller in town and city? 

4. Can the minister in a rural parish relate people to God 
more intimately than the minister in a city? 

5.* Are the people in a rural community more accessible 
to the minister than those in a town or city? 

6. What do you consider the best definition of a country 
community ? 

7 * Compare the Church as an organizing center in a 
community with any other organization in the rural 
community. 

8. What do you consider some of the defects of the 
individualist Church? 

9. Has emotion any legitimate place in the religious life? 

10. Will communities be saved as groups or as indi- 
viduals? 

11. What were some of the limitations of the household 
Church ? 

12.* What features in the household Church would you 
wish to conserve? 

13. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the 
competitive system in religious life? 

14. If you were a minister in a household farming com- 
munity, what would be the burden of your message 
to the people? 

15 * Enumerate the evil effects of speculation upon the 

Church. 
16.* What recommendations for effective service would 

you make to a minister working in a community 

where the spirit of speculation is abroad? 
17.* What can a minister do to get the people in a modern 

farming community to make the Church more helpful 

to the people? 
18. Is it easier for people to cooperate in agriculture than 

in religion? 
19- What can the Church do to minister to the social and 

economic needs of all the people? 

20. Should the Church direct its main efforts upon winning 
and training the young people or adults in a com- 
munity. Give reasons. 

21. Has the Church in a rural community an opportunity 
to do more for people than one located in an urban 
community ? 



206 The Church of the Open Country 
REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 
CHAPTER II 

Anderson, The Country Town, XVI. 

Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, I-III. 

Beard, The Story of John Frederic Oberlin, III. 

Boyle, " The Passing of the Country Church," The Outlook, 
May 28, 1904. 

Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress, XII. 

Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Problem, III. 

Galloway, " Country Church Problem Analyzed," The Inte- 
rior, July 23, 1910. 

Hayward, Institutional Work for the Country Church, I. 

Landis, " The Rural Church," Religious Education, Decem- 
ber, 1909. 

Raymond, "The Church of Christ in Ruralville," Yale Di- 
vinity Quarterly, February, 1909. 

Roads, Rural Christendom, XVIII. 

Report of the Country Life Commission, 60-63. 

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER III 

Aim : To Show the Necessity for Adequate Educational 
Facilities for Country Life 

I. To what extent are we under obligation to the Church 

for our secular system of education? 
2.* Why does the state consider it necessary to provide 

for the education of its youth? 
3. What do you consider some of the outstanding benefits 

of popular education? 
4 .* What contributions does the public school make to the 

Church ? 

5. Why are promotion of education and the Protestant 
Church so closely associated? 

6. To what extent is agricultural prosperity dependent 
upon good schools? 

7* Do you believe that the course of study in a rural 

school should differ from that in a city school ? Give 

reasons. 
8. Will it ever be possible to eliminate all one-room 

schools in our rural communities? Give reasons. 
9.* What are some of the advantages of a centralized 

school ? 



Questions and References 207 

10. Under what conditions is it possible to establish cen- 
tralized schools? 

11. What are some of the requirements, aside from a well- 
equipped building, for a first-class school? 

12. Xame some of the distinct contributions that the ex- 
tension work of agricultural colleges can make. 

13. Do you believe that the Church should promote agri- 
cultural education among the people? State reasons 
for or against. 

14.* What is the aim of the Sunday-school? 

15. Do you believe that the Sunday-school has fulfilled its 
mission when it has imparted instruction regarding 
the Bible? 

16. Should the Sunday-school include in its curriculum 
courses on missions, social service, patriotism, and 
good citizenship ? 

17. In what ways can the weekly Sunday-school teachers' 
meeting render service to the local community? 

18. Are the public schools sufficient to meet all the needs 
of a country community? 

19. Is the extension work of the State agricultural col- 
leges sufficient to meet all the needs of the country. 
community ? 

20. Sum up in the order of their importance the principal 
educational needs in our rural communities. 

21.* What can the Church do to meet these needs? 



REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 

CHAPTER III 

Anderson, The Country Town, 24, 217, 252-255. 

Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, IX. 

Bailey, The County Life Movement, 61-84. 

Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Problem, 

46-55. 
Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress, IX, XVI. 
Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, 359-361. 
Foght, The American Rural School, passim. 
Miller, The Problems of the Town Church, XX. 
Plunkett, The Rural Life Problem of the United States, 

132-135. 
Report of the Country Life Commission, 53-56. 
Roads, Rural Christendom, XIV. 
Vincent, The Modern Sunday School, XVII. 



208 The Church of the Open Country 

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IV 

Aim: To Learn How the Moral Life of the Rural Com- 
munity May Be Improved 

I. Is it natural for people to desire some form of recrea- 
tion and amusement? 

2 * Are amusements a factor in the development of the 
morals of the people? 

3. Can you give concrete incidents in which amusements 
have affected the morals of people? 

4. Would you consider the barroom a place of amuse- 
ment? 

5. If places of amusement are closed by law, are the citi- 
zens responsible for good substitutes? 

6. To what extent shall the church of a community pro- 
vide wholesome amusements and recreation? 

7. Make a list of the wholesome amusements a church 
can consistently offer to a community? 

8. What are some of the general principles you would 
adopt in furnishing amusement and recreation through 
the Church? 

9. Would you offer these amusements only to young peo- 
ple connected with your church? 

10. Under what supervision would you offer amusements 

to the people of your community? 
II.* Enumerate some of the moral benefits that can come 

to young men by participation in baseball, football, and 

other athletic exercises? 

12. What do you consider some of the benefits that ac- 
crue to an individual from cooperation in play? 

13. State the influences for good and evil that the spirit 
of speculation has upon individuals? 

14.* What Bible texts would you use in preaching to men 
in the speculative period? 

15. What do you consider the greatest need of the man 
mentioned on page 00, who sent his milk to Buffalo 
instead of Rochester? 

16. How would you reach the man mentioned on page 90, 
who provided milk from a grass-fed cow to a sick 
child in the community, but sent his milk from cows 
fed on green corn to the city? 

17.* What recommendations would you make to teach an 
individual to practise the Golden Rule? 

18.* Discuss lines of activity that the Church can promote 
to improve the moral life of the people. 



Questions and References 209 

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 

CHAPTER IV 

Anderson, The Country Town, XVII. 
Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, VI. 
Bailey, The Country Life Movement, 97-133- 
Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress, XIV. 
Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Problem, 

36-44- 

Conn, " Federation of Rural Social Forces," Charities, No- 
vember 3, 1908. 

Hayward, Institutional Work for the Country Church, V, IX. 

Hyde, " The Social Mission of the Country Church." Min- 
utes of the National Council of the Congregational 
Churches of the United States, Portland, October, 1901. 

Mead, Modern Methods in Church Work, II, IX, XII, XIX, 
XXI XXII 

Miller, The Problem of the Town Church, IX, XVI. 

Roads, Rural Christendom, XV-XVII. 

Wilson, Quaker Hill, Part I, chs. V, VII. 



QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER V 

Aim: To Realize the Benefits That Would Come from 
Economic Cooperation and Church Federation 

1. What conditions among pioneer farmers made coop- 
eration impossible? 

2. Why does not the household farmer cooperate easily 
with others? 

3. What effect has the speculative spirit upon economic 
cooperation ? 

4. Name some of the foremost examples of community 
cooperation in the United States. 

5. What is the difference between cooperative farming 
and a labor union? 

6. What is the difference between cooperative farming 
and communism? 

7 * Name some of the concessions that must be made by 
individuals who cooperate. 

8. What are some of the direct benefits that accrue to 
a community through economic cooperation? 

9. Enumerate some of the activities that can be done 
more effectively by cooperation. 



210 The Church of the Open Country 

10. What are the strength and weakness of the Grange as 
at present organized? 

ii. What lessons can we learn from the results of co- 
operation in Denmark? 

12. What religious message would you deliver to a com- 
munity that refused to cooperate? 

13. To what extent is Church federation dependent upon 
economic cooperation? 

14. Name some conditions under which you would rec- 
commend the federation of Churches. 

15. Do you believe that one strong church can do more 
for a community than several weak ones? 

16. Would you recommend federation in a community 
that is increasing in population if the churches were 
fairly prosperous? 

17.* Name some of the sacrifices that four leading Prot- 
estant communions would be obliged to make if they 
federated into one body. 

18.* Name the points of belief in which there is harmony 
of belief in these communions. 

19.* Sum up the losses and gains that would result in such 
a federation. 

20. Quote passages of Scripture that seem to express the 
spirit of unity and federation. 

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 
CHAPTER V 

Cooperation. 

Bailey, The Country Life Movement, 149-164. 

Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress, XVII. 

Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, 274, 278. 

Carver, " Rural Economy as a Factor in the Success of 
the Church." Department of Social and Public Serv- 
ice, Bulletin No. 4. 

Plunkett, The Rural Life Problem of the United 
States, V. 
Federation. 

Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, X, XL 

Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Prob- 
lem, 64-72, 114-116. 

Hooker, " The Problem of Interdenominational Comity 
Among Country Churches in Home Missionary Terri- 
tory; Christianity Practically Applied. Report of 
Chicago Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, 1893. 



Questions and References 211 

Root, "Overcoming Our Overlapping," The Home Mis- 
sionary, November, 1908. 

Strong, The New Era, XIV. 

Wells, " How Two Country Churches Became One," The 
Watchman, March 17, 1910. 

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VI 

Aim : To Realize the Necessity for the Abolition of Pov- 
erty and the Generous Support of the Church 

1. What is the difference between a pauper and a poor 
man as defined by the author? 

2. How do you account for the increase in the number of 
tenant farmers in productive sections? 

3. How do you account for a larger proportion of poor 
in the most prosperous States? 

4. How do you interpret the words of Jesus : " Blessed 
are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God"? 

5. Are the poor more religious as a rule than those who 
are wealthy? Give reasons. 

6.* What selfish motives can you suggest for taking care 
of the poor in your community? 

7. Quote passages of Scripture that command the care 
of the poor. 

8. Do you believe that the Church, cooperating with the 
people and other agencies, can abolish poverty in a 
rural community? 

9. Name some of the principles suggested by the author 
for successful church finances. 

10. Do you believe in asking poor people to contribute 
toward the work of the church? Why? 

11.* Do you believe that it is more blessed to give than 
to receive? 

12. Name some of the advantages of the duplex envelope 
system. 

13. Should the personal canvass for financial support be 
conducted by the minister or officers of the church? 

14* What obligations has a church outside of its own 
community ? 

15. Quote passages of Scripture that illustrate the prin- 
ciple and practise of giving. 

16. How much salary do you think a minister should be 
paid in the country? 

17. With what class of people in a community should the 
minister's salary compare? 



212 The Church of the Open Country 

18. Is the author's estimate of a minister's salary fair? 

19. Do you believe the ordinary rural community can 
meet these demands? 



REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 

CHAPTER VI 

Poverty. 

Beard, The Story of John Frederic Oberlin, II, V. 
Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, V. 
Gladden, Social Salvation, II. 

Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, V. 
Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, 
304, 305. 
Church Support. 

Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, XV. 
Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Prob- 
lem, 123-129. 
McGarrah, " Raising Money in the Country Church," The 

Herald and Presbyter, May 4, 1910. 
Mead, Modern Methods in Church Work, XXXIX. 
Miller, The Problem of the Town Church, XVIIL 
Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, 

291-298. 
Roads, Rural Christendom, XXII. 



QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VII 

Aim : To Learn How the Church May Render Social 
Service to the People of the Community 

1. Define social service. 

2. What do you understand by the marginal people of 
a community? 

3.* To what class of people did Jesus minister chiefly? 

4. Did Jesus confine his ministry to the souls of men? 

5. What is the difference between serving individuals 
and serving communities? 

6.* Is it more important to minister to the poor or to 
abolish the conditions that cause poverty? 

7. Shall the Church direct its ministry to the poor, and 
neglect the rich? 

8. Do you believe the Wisconsin minister rendered 



Questions and References 213 

Christian service when he led the people in organizing 
a cooperative store? 
9. Would he have been able to continue his church work 
if he had not aided them to prosper financially? 

10. Name some of the advantages for social service that 
a minister has who has knowledge of scientific farming. 

11. Would you advise theological students who enter 
country parishes to take agricultural courses? 

12.* Enumerate forms of social service for a community 

in which a minister should lead. 
13. What lessons may we learn from the achievements of 

Mr. Hares, the Minnesota minister, Mr. Adams, and 

Dr. Persons? 
14.* What do you consider some of the vital principles in 

a campaign for social service in a community? 

15. Who are the marginal people in your community? 

16. What is being done for them? 

17.* Do you believe the Church should engage in social 

service for the community? 
18. Quote passages of Scripture that would warrant the 

Church in engaging in social service. 

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 
CHAPTER VII 

Social Teachings of Jesus. 

Brown, The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit, II- 

Gladden, Social Salvation, I. 

Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, II. 

Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, II. 

Strong, The Challenge of the City, VI. 

Strong, The Next Great Awakening, VI. 
Social Service. 

Anderson, The Country Town, XVII. 

Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, V. 

Beard, The Story of John Frederic Oberlin, V. 

Hayward, Institutional Work for Country Churches, III,. 
V, VIII, IX, XL 

Mead, Modern Methods in Church Work, XIX, XXI,. 
XXII, XXVI, XXX. 

Miller, The Problems of the Town Church, IX, XVI. 

Roads, Rural Christendom, VIII-XVIL 

Strong, The New Era, XII. 

Taylor, "The Civic Function of the Country Church," 
The Chautauquan, December, 1902. 



214 The Church of the Open Country 

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VIII 

Aim : To Realize the Importance of Leadership in a Rural 
Community 

i. Trace the four phases of farming described by the 
author. 

2. Name some of the changes that have taken place in 
rural communities. 

3. Do you believe that farming in the organized period 
is on a more substantial basis than in any previous 
era? 

4. How do you account for the lack of leadership among 
rural people? 

5. Why do leaders as a rule arise in towns and cities? 

6. What type of leaders will reunions and anniversaries 
develop in a rural community? 

7. What type of leaders will religious festivals develop? 

8. How can leaders be developed through revival 
services? 

9.* Is the Church as a symbol broader in its service than 
the Grange, lodge, or political party? Explain fully. 

10. Shall the Church in its leadership recognize class dis- 
tinctions? 

11. Did the New England minister make a serious mis- 
take in conducting funerals by not taking account of 
local sentiments? Give reasons. 

12.* What are some of the qualifications for a minister to 

be successful in a rural community? 
13.* In selecting a minister, would you prefer a good 

preacher or a good organizer? Why? 

14. Which type of minister will develop the most local 
leadership? 

15. To what extent is the church-member responsible for 
the success or failure of a church? 

16.* What do you consider the functions of the Church? 

17.* Just how may we make the Church of our community 
the dominating symbol? Discuss fully. 

18. Will cooperation and federation aid the Church in 
holding a more commanding position before the com- 
munity? 

19.* What recommendations can you make to develop and 
strengthen leadership among country people? 



Questions and References 215 

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY 
CHAPTER VIII 

Leadership. 

Anderson, The Country Town, XVI. 

Ashenhurst, The Day of the Country Church, XVIIL. 

Beard, The Story of John Frederic Oberlin, passim. 

Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress, XII. 

Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Prob- 
lem, V. 

Hayward, Institutional Work for the Country Church, II. 

Hoyt, " The Call of the Country Church." Edited by 
John R. Mott, 124 East Twenty-eighth Street, New 
York, 1909. 

McNutt, "Modern Methods in the Country Church." 

Report of the Country Life Commission, 60-65. 

Roads, Rural Christendom, XVIII-XXIII. 

Strong, The New Era, XIII. 



APPENDIXES 

APPENDIX A 

HOW DENMARK DID IT 

After several years' war with England in Napoleon Bona- 
parte's time, Denmark was financially bankrupt, and with a 
gloomy prospect of another war, — this time at the southern 
border-line, with Schleswig-Holstein and Germany. 

Bishop Grundtvig brooded over his countrymen's dulness 
and stupidity. He wrote and preached to awaken and stir 
up the people to patriotism and to revive the spiritual life 
of the masses. With prophetic sense, he saw that, if salvation 
is to come, it must come from within, through the enlighten- 
ment of all the people, and that the individual must be edu- 
cated to be more virtuous, more intelligent, more skilful, 
and more industrious, and to have a true, honest impulse 
toward self-reform. 

His eloquent appeal aroused considerable enthusiasm; his 
hearers opened their eyes; certain thinkers and statesmen 
reflected for themselves; others smiled, scorned, and said, 
" Optimism ! " 

The movement, however, gained foothold, and the first 
small Folk High School was started by private individuals, 
near the southern border-line, in 1844. There were only 
about twenty pupils during a term for several years. The 
Queen became interested in Grundtvig's philosophy, and 
there was talk about founding a popular State High School. 
But the King, Christian the Eighth, who had promised aid, 
died, in 1848, and this plan was dropped for the time being. 

Probably this was the best for the Folk High Schools as 
they now are. Instead of one large state school, private 
schools were established, and in the year 1852 the second 
Folk High School was opened, out in the country, by a great 
pedagogical genius, C. Kold. It proved a success, and a 
few other schools were started during the next ten to 
twelve years. Kold's method and personality had a great 
influence upon the movement in the future. 
_ Folk High Schools and Agricultural Schools were estab- 
lished, and have increased from year to year, until at present 
there are from seventy to eighty Folk High Schools and 
twenty to twenty-five Agricultural Schools scattered through- 

217 



218 Appendix A 

out Denmark. All of these schools are owned by private 
individuals, but receive aid from the government, in propor- 
tion to their size. Prospective pupils may also readily re- 
ceive financial aid from the national and county governments. 

By years of experience, it has been found more practical 
to have the High Schools independent of the Agricultural 
Schools, but the leading spirit is the same, and the most 
proficient agricultural student has generally spent one term 
at the High School. 

All these schools are boarding-schools. The professors 
and teachers, with their families and students, associate to- 
gether like one large family, and even at the largest ones, 
with two hundred or more pupils, they have at least dinner 
together. 

Grundtvig lived to see his idea carried into execution. He 
attended to his voluminous writing and Church work to the 
last, preaching his last sermon in Vartow Church at Copen- 
hagen a few days before he died (1872), at the age of eighty- 
nine years. 

The population of Denmark is some three million, and 
about two fifths of the inhabitants are land-tillers. Roughly 
estimated, about 24,000 young men and women are annually 
introduced to the world, so to speak. Of these, about 8,000 
go to the Folk High Schools every year, for at least one 
term, which is generally five months in the winter for men, 
and three months in the summer for women. Others go 
to the university, seminaries, and technical schools, or trade 
schools. 

Naturally, it would seem incredible, to people unfamiliar 
with this method of teaching, that the students in the Folk 
High School could acquire such education, in a compara- 
tively short time, as is frequently attributed to these schools. 

The public schools are of the highest standard, and are 
equal to the public schools in any other country, so that 
the youths when entering the Folk High Schools are fairly 
well educated in the common branches of study. 

At least eighteen years of age is generally required for 
admission to the Folk High Schools (there is no maximum 
age), as at this age a person usually grasps new ideas easily. 
They readily enter into the spirit of the school, and give 
close attention to their work — which is done without any 
examinations. 

The teaching and instruction are usually in the form of 
lectures on historical, literary, scientific, religious, and other 
subjects, the purpose of all of which is to awaken individual 
personality and the power of thinking, and inspire to ac- 
tivity the intellectual and spiritual life, by popularizing learn- 




N. F. S. GRUNDTVIG 



Appendix A 219 

ing. This broadens the student's view of his surroundings 
and the world in general. 

The course in the agricultural schools consists of lectures 
and practical demonstrations of all work connected with a 
farm. 

I might also add that music, singing, and gymnastics play 
an important part in both of these schools. Undoubtedly 
the majority leave them with their senses awakened, with 
an enlarged view of life, and with an impulse of true Chris- 
tianity, although these schools are not what would be called 
religious schools, as religion is left to the student's free will. 
Yet, there is an uplifting religious atmosphere about them 
which is noticeable. 

These youths, naturally, become members, and are among 
the leaders, of the many different cooperative societies which 
cover practically everything connected with rural Denmark's 
welfare, even to the smallest detail, including the importa- 
tion of general supplies and exportation and sale of their 
products. 

They have their own representatives in the congress, who 
are elected from among themselves, and at present comprise 
the leading political party. 

The present members of the King's Cabinet are more or 
less directly interested in the Folk High School movement. 
Prime Minister Berntsen has been a Folk High School 
teacher, and the Minister of Education, Appel, is a teacher, 
and president of the largest Folk High School. The other 
members of the Cabinet, with a few exceptions, are plain 
farmers, educated at these schools. 

The friendships formed during the High School course 
are not severed after the student's departure. They have 
founded societies, which are scattered throughout the coun- 
try, and in many cases have erected their own buildings, 
with hotel accommodations. One of the largest organizations 
of this kind is at Copenhagen, and has about six hundred 
active members. 

In these societies, members and friends assemble amid 
home-like surroundings for social and educational purposes, 
and they thus retain the helpful influence which they acquired 
as students at the schools. 

They have also built numerous churches throughout the 
country, to which ministers are sent who have been chosen 
by the congregation. Up to a few years ago, the people 
had little to say about the choice of the clergymen, because 
the established Church, which is Lutheran, is under the direct 
control of the state, but the present legislature's tendency is 
to a greater freedom for the Church. 



APPENDIX B 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

To prepare a complete list of books, periodicals, references, 
and pamphlet literature on this subject would be almost an 
endless task, and probably result in some important omissions. 
It has therefore seemed wise to print a selected list. . 

General 

Anderson, W L. The Country Town. 1906. Baker & Tay- 
lor Co., New York. $1.00, net. 

A careful study of rural evolution, treating the changed 
conditions, character, selection and environment, and so- 
cial reconstruction. Confined to New England. 
Bailey, L. H. American Agriculture Cyclopedia, 4 Vols. 
1907. Macmillan Co., New York. $20.00. 

Exhaustive treatment of farms, climates, soils, crops, 
animals, and the relation of the farmer to the community. 
Bailey, L. H. The Country Life Movement in the United 
States, 191 1. Macmillan Co., New York. $1.25, net. 

A discussion of the country-life movement. Omits a 
treatment of the relation of the Church. 
Bailey, L. H. The State and the Farmer. 1908. Macmillan 
Co., New York. $1.25. 

An excellent book on rural economics and organiza- 
tion. 
Butterfield, K. L. Chapters in Rural Progress. 1908. Uni- 
versity of Chicago Press, Chicago. $1.00, net. 

An analysis of some of the more significant phases of 
the rural problem, and a description of some of the 
agencies at work in solving it. Perhaps the best gen- 
eral book on the subject. 
Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics. 191 1. Ginn 
& Co., Boston. $1.30. 

Includes a discussion of general principles, historical 
sketch, factors in production, management, distribution, 
and profits. Should be read by every student of rural 
life. 

220 



^Appendix B 221 

Plunkett, Sir Horace. The Rural Life Problem in the United 
States. 1910. Macmillan Co., New York. $1.25. 

Notes by a keen observer, based upon thirty-six years' 
experience in Ireland and America. He pleads for or- 
ganization for "better farming, better business, and bet- 
ter living." 
Pratt, E. A. The Organization of Agriculture. 1904. E. P. 
Dutton, New York. $2.00, net. 

An excellent work describing what is being done in 
the principal countries of Europe and America toward 
the better organization of the farming interests. 
Report of the Country Life Commission, Senate Document, 
No. 705. Government Printing Press, Washington. For 
sale by Sturgis and Walton, New York. 75 cents, net. 

The result of a survey by experts under the direction 
of the United States Government. 
Taylor, H. C. Agricultural Economics. 1905. Macmillan 
Co.. New York. $1.25. 

An excellent manual for the study of the economic 
principles underlying agricultural problems. 
Wilson, W. H. Quaker Hill. 1907. W. H. Wilson, 156 
Fifth Avenue, New York City. $1.25. 
A sociological survey of Quaker Hill, New York. 



The Country Church 

Abbott, E. H. Religious Life in America. 1902. Macmillan 
Co., New York. $1.00. 

A record of personal observations on religious life,, 
based upon a journey through eighteen States. 
Ashenhurst, J. O. The Day of the Country Church. 1910. 
Funk & Wagnalls, New York. $1.00, net. 

A treatment of the opportunity of the country Church 
based upon experience. A stimulating and helpful 
volume. 
Beard, A. F. The Story of John Frederic Oberlin. 1909. 
Pilgrim Press, Boston. $1.25. 

The story of the marvelous work of Oberlin of Wal- 
dersbach. Indispensable as an account of achievement 
under most difficult circumstances. 
Butterfield, K. L. The Country Church and the Rural Prob- 
lem. 191 1. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $1.00. 
A series of lectures delivered at Hartford Theological 
Seminary. Suggestive and constructive in its message. 
Hayward, C. E. Institutional Work for the Country Church. 



222 Appendix B 

1900. Free Press Association, Burlington, Vt. 50 cents. 

Contains many valuable hints for effective work. 
Roads, Charles. Rural Christendom. 1909. American Sun- 
day School Union, Philadelphia. 90 cents. 

A discussion of the rural problem, the agencies for 
the spread of Christian principles, and the place of the 
Church in Christianizing the community. 

Education 

Burton, Ernest D., and Matthews, Shailer. Principles and 
Ideals of the Sunday School. 1903. University of Chi- 
cago Press, Chicago. $1.00. 

One of the best books on pedagogy in the Sunday- 
school. 
Cope, Henry F. The Modern Sunday School in Principle 
and Practice. 1907. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 
$1.00, net. 

A helpful statement of the history, organization, prin- 
ciples, and practice of the modern Sunday-school. 
Foght, H. W. The American Rural S'chool. 1910. Mac- 
millan Co., New York. $1.25, net. 

A most practical book, covering every phase of rural 
life, especially written for rural school-teachers, super- 
intendents, and school-board members. 
Kern, O. J. Among Country Schools. 1906. Ginn & Co., 
Boston, Mass. $1.25. 

Written by a county superintendent of wide experi- 
ence. Treats of every important phase of rural-school 
activity. 
Vincent, J. H. The Modern Sunday School. 1900. Eaton & 
Mains, New York. $1.00. 

Chapter XVII deals especially with the rural school. 
Report of Committee of Twelve on The Rural School. Pro- 
ceedings of the National Education Association, 1897. 
Report of Committee on Industrial Education in Schools for 
Rural Communities. Proceedings of the National Edu- 
cational Association, 1907. 

Best discussions of fundamental problems. 

Christian Sociology 

Brown, C. R. The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit. 
1906. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25. 

A message to ministers, setting forth the broad oppor- 
tunities for social uplift. 



Appendix B 22^ 

Earp, Edwin L. The Social Engineer. 191 1. Eaton & 
Mains, New York. $1.50, net. 

A treatment of the essentials for a successful social 
worker, and a statement of the activities in which one 
may engage. 
Gladden, Washington. Social Salvation. 1902. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., New York. $1.00. 

Lectures delivered before the students of the Divinity 
School of Yale University. A discussion of some of the 
social problems, with suggested remedies. 
Henderson, C. R. Social Duties from a Christian Point of 
View. 1909. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $1.25. 
A text-book for the study of social problems. Valuable 
for classes in Christian Sociology. Has a good chapter 
en social duties in rural communities. 
Jenks, J. W. Social Teachings of Jesus. 1906. Y. M. C. A. 
Press, New York. 75 cents. 

The social aspects of Christ's teachings as related to 
the problems of modern life, treated in a twelve weeks' 
course. 
Patten, S. N. The New Basis of Civilization. 1907. Mac- 
millan Co., New York. $1.00. 

An interpretation of the meaning and significance of 
recent social changes with which the practical social 
worker is engaged. 
Peabody, Francis G. Jesus Christ and the Social Question. 
1910. Macmillan Co., New York. $1.50. 

An examination of the teachings of Jesus with regard 
to problems of social life. 
Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. 
1907. Macmillan Co., New York. $1.50. 

An able discussion of the social aims of Jesus and 
the challenge to the Church to carry out the work. One 
of the most stimulating books on the social question. 



Methods of Church Work 

Gladden, Washington. Parish Problems. Century Co., New 

York. $2.00. (Out of print.) 
A helpful discussion of the various problems connected 

with the activities of the Church, Sunday-school, and the 

community. Contains a chapter on the needs of country 

churches. 
Hayward, C. E. Institutional Work for the Country Church. 

1900. Free Press Association, Burlington, Vt. 50 cents. 



224 Appendix B 

A practical handbook for country pastors, describing 
specific methods that have been found practical. 
Mead, G. W. Modern Methods in Church Work. 1903. 
Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $1.50. 
As the title suggests, a discussion of methods of work. 
Miller, George A. The Problems of the Town Church. 
1902. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 75 cents. 
Devoted almost wholly to methods of work. 



Periodical Articles and Pamphlets 

A Chance for the Country Church. The Presbyterian Ad- 
vance, September 8, 1910. 
Anthony, A. W. The Problem of the New England Country 

Church. Homiletic Review, July, 1899. 
Biglow, W. B. The Country Church in America. Scribner's 

Magazine, November, 1897. 
Boyle, J. E. The Passing of the Country Church. The 

Outlook, May 28, 1904. 
Carver, Prof. T. N. Rural Economy as a Factor in the 

Success of the Church. Department of Social and Public 

Service, Bulletin No. 4, 20 pp. American Unitarian 

Association, 25 Beacon St., Boston. 
Conn, G. W. Federation of Rural Social Forces. Charities, 

November 3, 1908. 
Coulter, J. L. Organization Among Farmers of the United 

States. Yale Review, November, 1909. 
Country Life and the Church. The Outlook, April 10, 1909. 
Galloway, T. W. Country Church Problem Analyzed. The 

Interior, July 23, 1910. 
Gard, H. The Autobiography of a Country School Teacher. 

World's Work, May, 1910. 
Gilbert, G. H. How One Man Saved a Town. The Outlook, 

April 18, 1908. 
Gill, C. O. The Country Church and Recreation. Auburn 

Seminary Record, March, 1910. 
Goodenough, A. H. How to Reach the Rural Population. 

The Christian Advocate, December 29, 1904. 
Hartt, R. L. A New England Hill Town. The Atlantic 

Monthly, 1899. 
Hartt, R. L. The Regeneration of Rural New England. The 

Outlook, March 3, 10, 17, 31, 1900. 
Hitchcock, E. P. Cooperation in Country Life. Country 

Life, October, 1909. 



Appendix B 225 

Hooker, G. E. The Problem of Interdenominational Comity 
Among Country Churches in Home Missionary Territory, 
Christianity Practically Applied. Report of Chicago 
Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, 1893. 

Hoyt, A. H. The Call of the Country Church. Young 
Men's Christian Association Press, New York. 

Hyde, W. D. Impending Paganism in New England. The 
Forum, June, 1892. 

Hyde, W. D. The Social Mission of the Country Church. 
Minutes of the National Council of the Congregational 
Churches of the United States, Portland, October, 1901. 

Kennedy, A. J. Religious Overlapping. The Independent, 
April 9, May 7, 1908. 

Landis, E. B. A Country Minister at Work. Rural 
Manhood, Vol. I, No. 9. 

Landis, E. B. Rural Church in Its Educational and Social 
Opportunities. Religious Education, Vol. XV, No. 5. 

McGarrah, A. F. Raising Money in the Country Church. 
The Herald and Presbyter, May 4, 1910. 

McNutt, M. B. Modern Methods in the Country Church. 
Missionary Education Movement, New York. 

Moral Problems of the Farm. The Outlook, May 29, 1909. 

Nesmith, G. T. The Rural Church. American Journal of 
Sociology, May, 1903. 

Plunkett, Sir Horace. Satisfaction in Farm Life. The Out- 
look, January 20, 1910. 

Proceedings of the Conference on the Problems of the Rural 
Church in New England. Meeting held in Boston, Jan- 
uary 18, 19, 1909. Report of N. E. Country Church 
Associations. Address H. K. Rowe, Newton Center, 
Mass. 

Taylor, Graham. The Civic Function of the Country 
Church. The Chautauquan, December, 1902. 

The Country Church. The Westminster, February 12, 1910. 

The Country Church and Its Social Problem. The Outlook, 
August 18, 1906. 

The Country Church and the Making of Manhood. The 
Homiletic Review, August, 1907. Pamphlet reprint. 
6 pp. 10 cents, postpaid. 

The Useless Tragedy of the Farmer's Wife. The Delineator, 
June, 1909. 

Two Country Church Numbers. The Congregationalist and 
Christian World, July, 1904, 1905. 

Wells, G. F. An Answer to the New England Country 
Church Question. The Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1907. 
Pamphlet reprint. 10 pp. 10 cents, postpaid. 



226 Appendix B 

Wells, G. F. Church Federation as a Practical Proposition. 

The Christian Advocate, New York, March 29, April 

5, 1906. 
Wells, G. F. How Two Country Churches Became One. 

The Watchman, March 17, 1910. 
Wright, G. F. The Country Church. The Bibliotheca 

Sacra, April, 1890. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abandoned farms in Illinois, 
30 

(Absentee landlordism, evils 
of, 126 

Academies, era of, 63 

Adams, Rev. Clair S., work 
of, 165 

Agricultural colleges, 61 ; 
demonstration in Texas, 62 

Agriculture and the country 
school, 58 

Albion, New York, social 
work in, 164 

Alien invasion, the, 13 

"All day sings" in Alabama, 
27 

Altruism, 155 

American farm life, four 
phases, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16 

American ideals and house- 
hold farming, 31 

American Journal of Soci- 
ology, quoted, 24 

American rural life a na- 
tional issue, 3 

Amish, the, 106, 132 

Among Rural Schools, re- 
ferred to, 52 

Amusement, old Jviews of, 
79; present ideas of, 78, 
79 

Anderson, Dr. Wilbert L., 
quoted, 78; referred to, 4, 
10 

" Anniversary Day," James- 
burg, New Jersey, 181, 182 



Anniversary days in farming 
communities, 178, 182, 183 

Annual Report of the Winne- 
bago County Schools, re- 
ferred to, 52 

Apple, bees, 78; country, 164; 
marketing, Hood Valley, 
Oregon, 113 

Artificial land values, 12 

Atlantic Monthly, referred to,, 
6 

B 

Bailey, Professor Liberty H., 
quoted, 72, 100; referred to, 

3, 151, 164 
Baptists, 131 
Baptist Young People's 

Union, 160 
Beard, A. R, 105 
Beaver, ex-Governor, quoted 

on ministerial training, 163, 

164 
Beissel, Conrad, influence at 

Ephrata, 106 
Bellebuckle, Tennessee, school 

at, 129 
jBement, Illinois, out-station 

work, 165 
Boll weevil, 17, 18 
Bone, Mr. R. E., leadership 

of, 59 
Bowen, Miss, work of, 166 
Boy organizations in house- 
hold Church, 31 
Braddock, J. L., long pas- 

torate of, 191 



229 



230 



Index 



Breadwinners, 128, 130 
" Breaking Home Ties," pic- 
ture title, 9 
Breeze, Rev. Mr., good re- 
sults of canvass, 141, 142 
" Brush arbor " churches in 
southwestern States, 168, 
169 
Budget system, 143, 144 
Butterfield, K. L., quoted, 2, 
22, 154 

C 

California fruit. See Pacific 
Coast fruit growers 

Canadian conditions, 32, 33 

Carney, Miss Mabel, referred 
to, 52 

Carver, Thomas Nixon, quot- 
ed, 22, 63, 91, 94, 126 

Cash, in speculative era, 12, 

39, 40 
Causes of rural decay, 3 
Cazenovia, New York, 166 
Census of 19*0, referred to, 

128 
Centralization of schools, 56, 

60 
Changes offer opportunity, 92 
Charity Organization Society 

of New York City, 134 
Chautauqua enthusiasm, 64 
Children's religious training 

desired, 66 
Christ. See Jesus Christ 
Christianity, leavening power 

of, 93 
Christmas for community 

celebration, 19, 183 
Church, a center, 25; closely 

related to community, 23, 

24; cooperation, 106, 107; 

corresponding to the four 

phases of farming, 5-20, 25- 

44; the community symbol, 

186. See also Country 

Church 



Church attendance in a Mis- 
souri township, 16 

Church heart enlarged, 160 

Church of England, 132 

Church subsidies withdrawn, 
63 

Churches profit by scientific 
farming, 62, 63 

Civil War effects, 38, 109 

Classroom instruction for 
agriculture, 45 

Coal lands, 12, 13 

College graduate, work of, in 
Illinois, 167 

Combination and cooperation 
in business life, 7 

Comment on the dead in New 
England, 190 

Committee on Morals and 
Rural Conditions, 168 

Common project prized, 140, 
143 

Common school system, an 
outgrowth of religious de- 
votion, 49; lessened rural 
interest in, 50, 51 ; proposed 
improvements of, 52-60. 
See also Schools for the 
country 

Common things and the 
Church visitor, 161 

Community, and the Church, 
160; and the household, 44; 
defined, 24, 25 ; feeling lack- 
ing in New England, 135, 
136; institutions, 109; tra- 
dition in Pennsylvania, *g 

Community leadership, 20, 
176-197 

" Company houses," 87 

Competition, religious and 
other, 34, 35 

Congregational Conference of 
Massachusetts, 168 

Consecrated dues, 95 

Consecration of prosperity 
and wealth, 39, 139, 151, 152 



Index 



231 



Conservatism, 33 
Consolidation of schools, 56, 

57 . 

Continent, The, 100 • 

Conversion the object, 186 
Cooperating fruit growers, 

113, 114 

Cooperation, 101, 113; and 
competition, 89; and fed- 
eration, 43; in Denmark, 
115, 217-219 

Cooperative tillage not com- 
petitive, 42, 43 

Corn crop, enemies of, 61 

Cornell University experts, 62 

Cotton crop, 18; enemies of, 
61 

Coulter, Professor John I^ee, 
quoted, 38 

Counsel, Sunday-school meet- 
ing for, 70 

Country Church, as affected 
by phases of country life, 
5-36, 100-124; as leader and 
organizing center of the 
community, 22-25, 44-46, 75, 
1 1 8- 1 24, 152, 176-202; duty 
to marginal people, 130-137, 
156-173; financial methods, 
138-144; minister's support, 
144-150; relation to recrea- 
tion, 79-85, 91, 95-97, 172 • 

Country Life Commission, 
the, 3 

Country store a meeting- 
place, 179 

Country Town, The, 4, 6 

Cucumber enterprise, 163 

Cultivating community sense, 
19, 20 

D 

Dairy and orchard, 44 
Danforth and Connellsville 

road, condition of, 15 
Degenerates a menace, 11 
Degeneracy asserted, 3 



Delaware farmers, 112 
Democracy not equality, 177 
Denmark, reco nstructed 
through education and co- 
operation, 49, 50, 1 14- 1 18, 
196, 217-219 
Development of Protestant 
denominations from pover- 
ty, 131 
Devine, Dr. Edward T., quot- 
ed, 134 
Devotional meeting of Sun- 
day-school leaders, 71 
Divisions, causes of, 187, 189 
Doak, Samuel, at Nola 

Chucky River, 188 
Dunkers, 106, 132 



Easter in community observ- 
ance, 184 

Eastern Shore lands, 112 

Eastern tenacity of own- 
ership, 93 

Economic, care of the poor, 
137; causes of rural decay, 4 

Economic unity a source of 
strength, 108 

Education, phases of rural, in 
United States, 60-64; in 
Denmark, 115. See also 
Common school system 

Elwood, Professor Charles 
A., quoted, 24 

Emotional appeal in Church 
work, 26, 27 

Emphasis on country values, 
20 

Endowed church, the, 109 

Enemies of the Church: ex- 
ploited lands, 14; farm 
speculation, 11; group de- 
generacy, 8; individualism, 
5; summary, 16 

English language and the 
aliens, 171 



2$2 



Index 



Entertainments, principles 

governing, 95, 96 
Enthusiasm and idealism, 64 
Envelope system, 139, 143 
Ephrata University, 106 
Epworth League, 160 
Evangelism, 29, 69, 71 ; Easter 

advantages, 184 
Evangelist, duty of, 165 
Exaltation of giving, 13 
Expenses, a minister's, 145- 

148; his casual income, 

148, 149 
Experiment farm at the John 

Swaney school, 58 
Exploitation of farm life, 14; 

a bitter process, 37 



Factory labor conditions in 
the South, 87 

Faith and poverty, 133 

Family, altar, 45; unit, 8, 9 

Farm life in early New Eng- 
land, 8; present-day con- 
trasts, 9 

Farm, problems, 2; specula- 
tion, 11, 12 

Farmer and farming, four 
phases. See Household, 
Individualist^ Organised, 
and Speculative 

Farmer and his wife in the 
Sunday-school, 45 

Farmers' profits increasing, 
150 

Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in 
America, 123 

Federation, 101 ; an ideal, 
121; of churches, no 

Fernstrom, Mr. George Koe- 
fod, translation made by, 

65 
Florida, New York, commu- 
nity work in, 169, 170 



Foght, Professor H. W., re- 
ferred to, 52 

Folk high schools in Den- 
mark, 49, 64, 65, 217-219 

Fourth of July community 
celebration, 19, 178 

" Frolics " disapproved in 
pioneer churches, 88 



Georgia schools, 60 

Getting a living, 86 

Giving, 38, 40, 94, 139, 140, 

_ 143, 144 

Graded courses in the Sun- 
day-school, 68 

"Graft" methods bring pen- 
alty, 146 

Grange, the, in, 112 

Groton, Massachusetts, 14 

Groups can render social 
service, 156 

Grundtvig, Bishop, influence 
in Denmark, 50, 217-219; 
song written by, 65 

Gulick, Luther H., quoted, 78 



H 



Harte, Rollin Lynde, referred 

to, 6 
Hayes, Dr. Willet M., 59 
Hesiod, referred to, 42, 43 
High school, the, 63 
Holiday observance, 19 
Hood Valley, Oregon, apples, 

113 

Hook-worm, 17 

Household farming phase 
and Church, 5, 8-1 1, 16, 30- 
36, 87-92, 101-103; lacks 
community ideal, 8, 30-35, 
106, 107 

Household groups in New 
England farm life, 8; past 
type, 16 



Index 



233 



Huntsville, Alabama, 86 

" Husbandry," 33 

Hyde, President William De- 
Witt, a leader in federation 
work, 122; quoted, 78; re- 
ferred to, 6 



I 



Ideal, a new country, 18, 19, 
174 ; needs to recognize lead- 
ership, 180, 181 

Ideal in foreign missions, 193 

Illinois, household farming 
era, 30; State Experiment 
Station, 58 

Immigrants, as a testing ele- 
ment, 13 ; possibilities and 
needs of, 170; evangeliza- 
tion of, 171, 172 

Immigration from poorer 
lands, 130 

Improvements, taxation for, 

39 . 

Inconsistency, instances of 
religious, 90, 91 

Independence of the farmer 
a separating force, 5, 8, 
180 

Indiana schools, 60 

Individual idealized, 102 

Individualism, effect on the 
family, 6; in churches, 25; 
in country folk, 5, 6; in 
Protestantism a weakness, 
193 ; makes combination 
impossible, 7 

Individualist or pioneer farm- 
ing phase and Church, 5- 
8, 16, 25-30; lack of play, 
85, 86; moral features, 86, 
87, 101, 102 

Industrious poor, duty to the, 
129-139 

Iowa schools, 60 

Ireland improving economic- 
ally, 118 



Italians in Grove City, Penn- 
sylvania, 171 



Jamesburg, New Jersey, an- 
nual "Anniversary," 181 

Jesus Christ, 45; authority 
over individual soul, 69; 
relation to marginal people, 
158, 161 ; teachings as to the 
poor and marginal parables, 
130-131, 158-161 

John Swaney school, Putnam 
Co., Illinois, 57, 58 

Judson, Dr. Edward, quoted, 
44 



K 



Kern, Superintendent O. J., 

referred to, 52 
Ketler, Dr. Isaac C, 171 
King, President Henry C, 

quoted, 88 
Kingsley, Charles, and the 

Church year, 182 
Kirksville, Missouri, 52 



Labor Day celebration, 19 
Lack of socializing experi- 
ence, 178; consequent de- 
generacy, 181 
Ladies' Aid Societies, 62, 179 
Land-farmer period, 5. See 

also Household farming 
Land Grant Act of 1862, 61 
Land tilling, new methods re- 
quired, 43 
Landless, the, 127; service to, 

162 
Landlord factor in problem, 

37, 126, 129 
Leaders, community, 161- 
165; in reconstruction of 



234 



Index 



the country school, 52; es- 
sential, 68; selection of, 185 

Leadership and the Church, 
181 

Lin Hurie Chapel, the, 168 

Literature of the country life 
problem, 4, 220 

Local option, 81 

Long walks to school, 58 

M 

Maine, Church federation in, 
122 

Marginal people: Christ and 
the, 158, 160; Church rela- 
tion to, 160-173 1 m early 
American life, 159; many 
applications of idea, 156, 
157; moral standards, 132, 
133 ; parables illustrating, 
159 

Marginal values, 43 

Martin, Rev. Mr., of Wis- 
consin, reorganizes com- 
munity, 162 

Maryland farmers, 112 

Mechanic's living wage, a, 145 

Memorial Day community 
observance, 19 

Mennonites in Pennsylvania, 
19, 106, 132, 136 

Methodists, 131, 132 

Milk farmer, the, 43 

jMill-workers in Pittsburgh, 
133 

Miners imported, 13 

Ministerial training, 163, 164 

Ministers' motives for chang- 
es, 150; salaries, 144, 145, 
150 

Ministry to pioneers, 28 

Minnesota, creameries, 164; 
use of stages for school 
children, 58, 59 

Missionary contributions, 140 

Missouri town, a blighted, 15 



Modernized school, 57 
Money values and country 

life, 93 
Moral problem, the, 86, 87, 

96, 97 
Morals and temperance in 

country life work, 80, 81 
Mormon cooperation, 103, 108 
Motion picture shows, 16 

N 

National spirit of Denmark, 
115 

Nebraska church, a, 138 

Necessities of the rural 
school, 59 

New England, education in, 
in the seventeenth century, 
49; Federation of Church- 
es, 123 ; neglect of the poor, 
136; town a self-governing 
community, 18 

New Hampshire State Col- 
lege of Agriculture, 114 

New Testament teaching, 68 

New York City tenement- 
house problem, 132 



Oberlin, John Frederic, ex- 
perience of, 104 

Object of teaching, 58 

Oklahoma leasehold specifica- 
tions, 62 

Old Home Week, 19, 182 

Old Testament teaching, 68, 
7i, 72, 73 

One-room school, the, 50, 51; 
improvement needed, 53, 54 

Organization a necessity for 
country people, 18 

Organized or scientific farm- 
ing phase and Church, 5, 
16-20, 41-46, 95-97 

Osborn, Richard, of Quaker 
Hill, New York, 120 



Index 



235 



Outlook, The, quoted, 2 
Overchurched community, 
the, 7, 8 



Pacific Coast fruit growers, 

113, 114 

Parables illustrating mar- 
gins, 159 

Pastoral work and the indi- 
vidualist community, 25, 28 

Pastors' helps, 156 

Peace strength and war 
strength, 2 

Pennsylvania Church fed- 
eration by counties, 123 

Pennsylvania Germans, 103, 
105, 106, 108, 136 

Periods of American coun- 
try life, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16 

Persisting primitive types, 10 

Personal work, 29 

Persons, Dr. Silas E., work 
of, 166 

Pioneer, forms first type of 
country life, 7 ; individual- 
ist spirit, 2, 5 ; without rec- 
reation, 85, 88 

Pittsburgh mill-workers, 133 

Plate contributions, 139 

Play, a new estimate of, 78, 
79, 84, 85 

Pledge-signing, 81 

Plunkett, Sir Horace, quoted, 
2, 48, 100; referred to, 4, 
103, 104 

Political trouble, cause of, 10 

Poor, industrious, 127; sup- 
posed to be shiftless, 160; 
to be cared for, 105, 129 

Potentially wealthy States, 
129 

Poverty, 131-133; can be 
abolished, 134 

Preachers and community 
work, 20, 25, 28 



Presbyterian influence at 
Rock Creek, 59; Presby- 
terianism now less con- 
vincing, 121 ; Presbyterians, 

131 

Preserving soil fertility, 62 

Princeton graduate in Ten- 
nessee, a, 187 

Problem of the poor, 158 

Prohibition, 81 

Prosperity the standard of 
giving, 144 

Public school system, 137 

Puritanism not now satisfy- 
ing, 72 



Quaker Hill, New York, 
community Church, 119, 
120; help for mail carrier, 

Quaker principles, in school 
consolidation, 59; in deal- 
ing with pauperism, 135 

Quaker tradition in Pennsyl- 
vania, 19 

Quakerism now less convinc- 
ing, 72 



Railroad influence, 9 
Random giving, 155 
Rasmussen, Professor Fred, 

114 
Real estate agents, 37 
Reasons for organization, 156 
Recreations, three principles 

for, 95 
Reformed Churches, 131 
Religion, as related to the 
household, 45 ; to morals, 
80; to the pauper, 131, 132; 
to the renter, 128; to tem- 
perance, 82; to work of so- 
cial reconstruction, 194-202 
Religious, idealism, 118; 



236 



Index 



meetings in southwestern 
States, 168; spirit neces- 
sary, 93 
Remedies for rural decay, 4 
Renter, the, 37 
Repair work, 16, 17 
Report of the Country Life 
Committee, quoted, 48, 176 
Retired farmer, the, 37 
Riding to school, 58 
Roberts, Dr. Peter, 171 
Rock Creek school, the, 58 
Roman Catholic Poles in 

Florida, New York, 169 
Roosevelt, Theodore, re- 
ferred to, 3 
Root, Rev. E. Tallmadge, 123 
Ross, Professor, quoted, 40, 

94 

Rural decay, causes, 3; rem- 
edies, 4 

Rural life, American condi- 
tions of, 3 

Rural Life Problem in the 
United States, The, 4 

Rural population decreases, 

I5ii 152 

Russell Sage Foundation, 

the, referred to, 145 
" Ryed off " lands, 14 



St. George's Parish, New 
York City, 142 

Salary, of the country minis- 
ter, 144-150; of country 
teachers, 54 

Saloon influence to be over- 
come, 10, 81, 170 

Salvation and selfishness, 7 

Sanitary reform, 17 ^ 

Saved to serve, 194 

Schoolhouse in Missouri, 15 

Schoolmasters in Denmark, 
work of, 49 

Schools for the country, 13, 
48-65 



Scientific farming, 17, 41, 150. 
See also Organized 

Scotch and Irish Presbyteri- 
ans, 103 

Scotch settlers in Canada, 33 

Scotland and origin of com- 
mon schools, 49 

Silver Bay Conference, Mis- 
sionary Education Move- 
ment, 168 

Sins and vices of pioneer 
days, 86 

Slum whirlpool, 10 

" Snowbound," Whittier's, re- 
ferred to, 8 

Social cooperation, 103 

Social Forces, quoted, 134 

Social influence of the rural 
school, 60 

Social service, 155; selection 
in, 165 

Social traits lacking in pi- 
oneer women, 26 

Social unity, the country 
church a symbol of, 36 

Soil depletion, 14 

Southern farmer, old and 
new style, 129 

Southern mountain regions, 
periodic revival in, 28; in- 
dividualism in, 29 

Speculation disintegrates, 107 

Speculative agriculture in the 
Middle West, 93; moral 
gains from, 94 

Speculative farming phase 
and Church, 5, 11-16, 36- 

4i, 92-95 
Statistical Journal, The, 

quoted, 38 
Story of John Frederic Ober- 

lin, The, 105 
Strong, Josiah, referred to, 

6 
Suicides among discouraged 

descendants of households, 

10 



Index 



237 



Sunday gatherings to the 
country church, 35 

Sunday-school as community 
center for religious edu- 
cation, 45, 46, 48, 68, 69, 
100, 160; evangelizing and 
reconstructive power, 48, 
65-75; leaders' group meet- 
ing, 69-71 ; need of new in- 
spiration, 49, 193 

Sunday singing in the moun- 
tain districts, 27 

Supervision of rural schools, 

54 
Surveys by the Department 
of Church and Country 
Life in Pennsylvania and 
in Illinois, 179 



Town and country schools 
need to differ, 56 

Town attractions for coun- 
try people, 178 

Town meeting, the, 19 

Trained superintendents for 
rural schools, 55 

Transition time, the minis- 
ter's task in, 40 

Trustees and the public 
trusts, 89 

Tusculum College, Tennes- 
see, 188 

Twenty-third Psalm, faith 
of, 133 

Two community leaders, 180 

Types in American country 
life, 5 



Taft, Miss Anna B., 168 
Tag days in Denmark, 117 
Taxation, new, 39 
Teachers', practical action, 

20; salary, 54 
Team-haul radius measures 

community, 56 
Team-work as a training for 

cooperation, 80 
Temperance advanced by 

country people, 81 ; needs 

to add constructive work, 

82 
Tenant farmers, 128, 138; 

and moral standards, 133; 

in the southern States, 129 
Tenement-house problems in 

New York City, 132 
Texas Church funds and sci- 
entific farming, 62 
Thanksgiving service as a 

community meeting, 19 
"The Holy Earth," 72 
"Three R's," the, 50, 51 
Tobacco culture, exhausting 

soil, 14 



U 

Undenominational Church, 

the, no 
Unfederated religious stage, 

101 
University of Missouri, 24 
Unity and community, 190 
Unproductive farms, 9 
Use of recreation organiza- 
tion, 83 



Values of farm land chang- 
ing, 11 

Village blacksmith, an enter- 
prising, 169, 170 

Votes for sale, 83 

W 

Waldersbach, Oberlin in, 104 

Washington College, Tennes- 
see, 188 

Wassaic, Dutchess County, 
New York, 182 

Weakness of country church- 
es, 37 



2 3 S 



Index 



Wealthy church member's 

large gift demoralizing, 138 
Webb, Principal, quoted, 129 
Welsh pastor and his tithe 

system, 141 
Wesley, John, quoted, 132 
Westward emigration of 

New England farm folk, 6 

38 
Widow's mite, the, 140, 142 
Winnebago County, Illinois, 

52, 191 
Wisconsin pastor, a, 141, 162 
Wisconsin railway and the 

farmers, 162 
Woman in pioneer life, 26 
Work and worship, 23 



Working folk erect the 
churches, 138, 142 

World's fair, Chicago, re- 
ferred to, 9 

Worship the freest common 
function, 189 



Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation, 39; in a consoli- 
dated rural school, 59; 
work for the alien, 171 

Young People's Society of 
Christian Endeavor, 31, 160 

Young Women's Christian 
Association, 84 



Forward Mission Study Courses 



"Anywhere, provided it be forward." — David Livingstone. 



Prepared under the direction of the 
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 

OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 

Editorial Committee: T. H. P. Sailer, Chairman; A. E. 

Armstrong, T. B. Ray, H. B. Grose, J. E. McAfee, C. R. 

Watson, A. R. Gray, L. B. Wolf, G. F. Sutherland, H. P. 
Douglass. 



The Forward Mission Study Courses are an outgrowth of a 
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Forward Mission Study Courses. These courses have been 
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The aim is to publish a series of text-books covering the 
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The following text-books having a sale of 900,000 have 
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1. The Price of Africa. (Biographical.) By S. Earl 
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7. The Christian Conquest of India. A study of India. 
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8. Aliens or Americans? A study of Immigration. By 
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9. The Uplift of China. A study of China. By Arthur 
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10. The Challenge of the City. A study of the City. 
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11. The Why and How of Foreign Missions. A study 
of the relation of the home Church to the foreign missionary 
enterprise. By Arthur J. Brown. 

12. The Moslem World. A study of the Mohammedan 
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13. The Frontier. A study of the New West. By Ward 
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14. South America: Its Missionary Problems. A study 
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15. The Upward Path: The Evolution of a Race. A 
study of the Negro. By Mary Helm. 

16. Korea in Transition. A study of Korea. By James 
S. Gale. 

17. Advance in the Antilles. A study of Cuba and 
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of conditions throughout the non-Christian world. Bv John 
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These books are published by mutual arrangement among 
the home and foreign mission boards, to whom all orders 
should be addressed. They are bound uniformly and are 
sold at 50 cents, in cloth, and 35 cents, in paper; postage, 
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DEC 13 1911 



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